Halfway House
by Authoressinhiding
Summary: Post-NFA. Team Angel relocates to the new Hellmouth to help Faith run a halfway house for troubled Slayers. She needs them, and they need something to do. Now if only everyone could get along! Reoccurring characters include Gunn, Andrew, Giles, and Rona. [ON HIATUS]
1. The Halfway House

**Disclaimer: All characters here represented belong to Joss Whedon & Co. Not me.**

**Author's Note: This story will take a few elements from BtVS:Season 8. **

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><p>"Here we are!" Faith Lehane turned into the driveway of a sprawling ranch style house. She parked the neat black sedan next to a beat-up green Dodge Intrepid.<p>

Her passenger in shotgun grinned ironically. "Home sweet home, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Only took us four days, six detours, and one helluva night in Hobbiton, California – did anyone even _know_ there was a Hobbiton, California?"

"Not me. Back seat?"

Spike twisted his head around to check on the other passengers. "Coach class is out."

"What?" Faith pulled her key out of the ignition. "Asleep or unconscious?"

The vampire leaned further into the back seat. "I think asleep. Although given the way you drive, princess, the latter is definitely a possibility. Peaches." He reached out and shook Angel's shoulder roughly. "Hey, Peaches. Wake up."

"M'awake," the older vampire mumbled without opening his eyes. Illyria, Gunn, and Angel were all huddled together in a weird tangle of limbs. It took Spike's eyes several seconds to unravel it all – and that was saying something.

"Are we there yet?" Illyria clung to the phrase like a five-year-old to his blanket. "Please, Spike. Tell me, are we there yet?"

"We are here. Wherever here is. Where is here, Faithy?"

Doing her best not to glance pointedly at Illyria, Faith answered, "Cleveland. Ohio this time. _Not_ Oklahoma."

Gunn lifted his head. "We're here?"

"Yes."

"No more of that crazy driving of yours?"

"We're here, okay? Jeez."

"Sweet Mother of" – Gunn disentangled himself from the others in the backseat faster than Faith could say "knife". Or grab a knife, for that matter. He threw himself onto the grass at the edge of the driveway and sprawled out, spread-eagled. "Thank you, G-d. Oh, thank you, G-d."

Everyone else followed him out of the car.

"My driving isn't that bad," the Slayer growled, popping the trunk. "Is it?" she asked Angel, who was helping her lift suitcases out of the car.

"Trust me, you don't want me to answer that." Angel winced as he moved a particularly heavy black duffle bag. "What did you put in here, Spike? Bricks, anvils, a statue of Acathla?"

"Pure whisky, actually," Spike whispered into Illyria's ear. "80 proof."

Unsure what insignificant mortal thing he was talking about and still rather queasy from that awful car ride, Illyria settled on a dismissive look.

"Anyway," the blond vampire went on, taking his bag from Angel, "you don't drive _that_ badly, Faith. You're better than Buffy, anyhow."

It was the first time anyone had mentioned Buffy on their long car ride. Slayer and vampires looked at one another awkwardly for a moment. Faith was watching her friends, terrified one of them would express a desire that Buffy were there. Angel hoped desperately that Spike wouldn't say something crass and painful. For his part, Spike half-expected his grandsire to break into tears and start blubbering about cookie dough, of all things.

Luckily for them, Gunn chose that moment to try and stand up. He only made it halfway before falling down again.

"Guys? A little help here? Some residual vamp injuries. Can a brother get a hand?"

"Right."

"Sorry, mate."

Spike and Angel stepped over to Gunn. They lifted him gingerly and set him on his feet.

"You humans are ridiculously fragile," observed Illyria with a smirk of disdain. "You break so easily."

"Watch it, lady. I survived that big battle."

"Wesley did not. What?" she asked as everyone else winced horribly. "I speak only the truth."

"Now's not the time, Blue." Spike patted her gently on the arm. "Not tonight, okay?" After shouldering his own duffle, he passed the ex-god a much smaller bag. "So, shall we go in?"

Faith moved sluggishly, like a dreamer just waking up. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go in." She slammed the trunk lid shut almost automatically. "Come on, guys. Everybody get their bags."

The exhausted remnants of Team Angel followed her onto the large front porch and inside the house. They walked through a spacious living room, then along a skinny hallway to reach the kitchen.

"You can set your stuff in the hall for now. I'll show you your rooms in a minute. Figured everyone would want a snack." Faith glanced around the group. "Who's hungry?"

"That depends on what you got."

"Funny, Gunn." The Slayer opened the fridge and started digging through it. "There's half a Domino's pizza, some Chinese take out that was here when I left, half a gallon of pig's blood, and I think we've got rainbow sherbet and frozen waffles in the freezer. Any of that sound good?"

Illyria had never had waffles, but she liked the word and so claimed them. After Gunn decided to take the leftover pizza, Angel and Spike spent a good two minutes bickering over whose glass had more blood in it. Sniggering at the pair of them, Faith fished a spoon out of the silverware drawer and settled down with her half-empty carton of sherbet. No one spoke while they ate. The long days of road-tripping had finally taken their toll, and each of them was thinking with some longing of a real bed that wasn't in some sleazy motel infested with ants, cockroaches, or a demon biker gang.

Just when Faith's head started drooping over her sherbet, the door to the kitchen flew open. A young man with sandy blond hair wandered in. He blinked at them all sleepily, then his eyes went to Spike.

"Spike!" He threw his arms around the vampire. "Faith said she was going to get you, and I just had to be here and come see you, you know." The young man released Spike and took a step backwards. "I was gonna get you one of the blossoming onions, but they're never as good as when they're fresh. So that can wait till tomorrow."

"Hullo, Andrew." Spike looked down at his overly enthusiastic friend and smiled. Usually the boy's puppy-dog behavior irritated him, but not tonight. It had been far too long since someone had been truly happy to see him. "I thought you were in Rome?"

"I was. But I wanted to come see you. And all the interesting stuff's happening here, anyway. There's a Hellmouth and a whole cadre of Slayers and this place."

"This place?" Andrew glanced at Gunn, not entirely sure where to place him. "Yeah. It's kind of a halfway house for Slayers in trouble. Giles and Faith run it."

"Giles?" Spike and Angel turned as one to stare at Faith, incredulous.

Faith shrugged. "We worked a mission together a few months ago. He helps me get the money for this place. But you don't need to worry about running into him. Giles's back in England. Hey, Andrew, want to give everybody a tour? Show them their rooms, the basement? I'll do the dishes."

"Sure thing." Andrew's eyes lit up. He loved being a tour guide. "Follow me, people! But keep your voices down. The little Slayers are sleeping."

As soon as everyone was out of the kitchen, Faith started cleaning the table and sticking dishes in the dishwasher. She had recently learned that once you let the mess get away from you, it reproduced like rabbits. Dishes done, the Slayer pulled an abused cell phone out of her jeans pocket and punched in a long number. After three rings, the person on the other end picked up.

"Faith?"

"Hey, G-man. We're all back in Cleveland, safe and sound."

"Good to hear. I was starting to wonder. Did you get lost?"

"Only twice . . . okay, maybe it was a bit more than that." Faith laughed. "How's England?"

"Grey. Wet. Utterly beautiful."

"Figures. Have you seen Buffy yet?"

"I called her yesterday. We are going to meet for dinner and have a long talk tonight."

"See if you can get back in favor?" The minute Faith said it, she wished she hadn't. She could just see Giles wincing at her lack of taste or tact or one of those t-words. "Sorry, Giles."

"Faith . . ."

"It's none of my business. Really."

"Faith – "

"I should let you go. Got to get some sleep. Rona left me a message on my phone. New girl tomorrow. Bye."

Faith flipped the phone shut and set it on the table, feeling slightly disappointed. Why did she always have to screw things up? Glancing at the clock, she realized it was four in the morning.

_Way past time for good Slayers to be in bed,_ she thought dryly. _And formerly bad, currently reformed Slayers as well. Hmm. I should probably go check on everybody. A shower sounds so good right now, though._ She sighed and plopped down on a barstool at the kitchen table. _It's been a long week._

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><p>"I get top. I'm always on top."<p>

"And you never let anybody forget it," Angel muttered under his breath. He still wasn't sure how he and Spike had ended up in the same bedroom, albeit with two bunk beds. Had Andrew said something about this being the only sun-proof bedroom in the house? It sounded familiar, but Angel was too exhausted to remember.

Spike was already hanging his duster up in the closet, marking his territory. He grinned at the jacket fondly. "Home sweet home, eh?"

"For now."

The younger vampire chose to let this pass. Yeah, Faith needed them at the moment, but Spike well understood wanderlust. Besides, the last few months had been awful enough to unsettle anyone, even the Poofter. Did vampires get PTSD? Spike was starting to think they all had it. Gunn with his nightmares, Angel with his near constant brooding, Faith and her past . . . Sometimes it felt like Blue was the normal one.

"Can we get some of that glass?" he asked to change the subject.

Angel sighed. "What glass, Spike?"

"The glass you had in your office. The scorch-proof glass."

"Maybe." Angel shrugged off his jacket and set it on the bottom bunk. "I'll be back. I left something in the kitchen."

He found Faith passed out at the kitchen table, her head on a towel.

"Hey." He tapped her gently. "Wake up."

"I'll trade you a pack of cigarettes for those chips. And some soap. Oh, sorry, Angel." Smiling blearily, Faith sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Jail dream?"

Trust Angel to guess it right the first time. "Yep." She hopped off her barstool. "I should really go to bed. Big day tomorrow."

"Faith, why am I here?"

The Slayer looked at him in confusion. "Because we need you. I need you." Oops. There went her filter. She was definitely too tired to function. _Pull it together, Faith_. She tried again. "'Cause Giles thinks you can help."

"Help with what?" If she stumbled one more time, Angel was going to reach out and take her arm so she didn't give herself a concussion.

"Help save people, of course. Isn't that what you do, save souls?"

"I used to." Angel thought of Fred and felt like crying. Either that or drinking himself into a coma. "Now I just destroy them."

After tripping over her own feet and nearly crashing into the wall, Faith linked her arm through Angel's. "You saved me," she reminded the vampire quietly.

He had no response for that. Arm in arm, the two friends walked down the hallway to Faith's room together. She disappeared inside, flopped onto her bed, and was asleep in fifteen seconds.

Out in the hall, Angel turned to go back to his own room, half-smiling. He wasn't sure if this was going to work out, but at least he wasn't alone. He had Faith and Gunn and Illyria and sometimes even Spike. And that was enough for tonight.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Several months ago, I wrote a story called "Life as We Know It" that was something like this. After reading it through again, however, I didn't like where it was going or how I was writing it. Hence my decision to scrap it and write this instead. Hit that tantalizing "review" button and let me know what you think!<strong>

**AiH**


	2. Continuing Education

**Disclaimer: All the characters here represented belong to someone else.**

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><p>Gunn woke from a dreadful dream about a giant squid to high-pitched screaming. What the – ? For a moment, he fought the bed covers in a blind panic. This small bedroom with navy blue walls and a short double bed was not his. Not his at home, not his at the Hyperion, not his at all. Where was he?<p>

Slowly memories came flooding back to him. No more home, no more Hyperion. No more Fred, no more Wes. This room, this house, belonged to Faith. And it was probably her idiot trainees who were screaming.

Light from the single window traced a gleaming golden pattern on the brown carpet. Gunn didn't notice it. He glanced at the beat-up alarm clock on his equally beat-up nightstand. Four o'clock in the afternoon. No wonder his stomach was growling.

Stretching, the man got out of bed and fished for jeans and a clean shirt in his large yellow duffle. After changing quickly, Gunn followed the female shrieks into the kitchen.

Faith and a slightly younger black woman were sitting at the table with their backs to him, watching two teenage girls bawl each other out. One was petite and tan. Her shiny dark hair bounced off the shoulders of her blue and gold cheerleading uniform as she gestured violently with cobalt-nailed fingers. The other girl, tall and lanky, towered over her, red hair so frizzed that she resembled a porcupine.

"Don't you ever touch me again," bellowed the brunette, nearing hysteria.

"What are you going to do?" the redhead sneered. "Pom-pom me to death?"

"Popcorn?"

Gunn turned with a start to see Andrew at his elbow with a large bowl of very buttery popcorn.

"About time," mumbled Faith.

"Yeah, Andrew, get that over here," added the other woman, not bothering to turn around. "I'm starving."

"Hey, Gunn, you made it," Faith flashed him a grin. "Care to watch the show?"

Eyebrows raised, Gunn joined the other three at the table. The two teenagers continued their shouting match, seemingly oblivious to their popcorn-munching audience. Faith and the other woman – she had to be a Slayer, Gunn figured – just let them scream at one another until the popcorn bowl was nearly empty. When only a few unpopped kernels remained, Faith hopped off her barstool.

"Okay, that's enough." She forced herself between the two fuming girls. "Fight's over."

"Keep out of it," growled the brunette. "Who the heck do you think you are?"

Faith looked down at the petite girl as if she'd very much like to hit her. Which she probably would, Gunn reflected, remembering the Slayer's past.

"Rona, what happened again?" she asked, obviously trying to keep her cool.

The other Slayer rolled her eyes. "Got word from headquarters last night that the power was waking up in somebody. Willow told me how to find the new girl. I went to go pick her up after school, explain the whole Slayer calling, and I found her in the middle of a huge cat fight."

"So which girl is it?" wondered Gunn, interested.

Rona sighed. "Turns out, it's both of them."

Disbelieving, Faith glanced from girl to the next. "Both of them?" she repeated weakly.

"Apparently. Willow's mojo went crazy when I walked in on them fighting. And the way they were throwing punches . . . It's a two-for-one deal. Faith, meet Linea," she pointed to the redhead, "and Zoë, vampire Slayers."

"Vampire what? There's no such thing as vampires," Linea said quickly.

"You're pale enough to be one." The first hints of a bruise were starting to show Zoë's cheek, so perhaps her venom was justified.

"Rona!" Faith was horrified. "You want _me_ to train them?"

"Oh, good!" Andrew leapt up, his cheerful face lit with excitement. "I'll go get the explanation whiteboard!"

One of Andrew's favorite things about living with Faith was that she let him tell stories. Sure he had to put up with her eating his Hot Pockets and making jokes about his love of Star Trek and hogging the shower after patrolling, but this made up for all of that. Faith abhorred reciting the sordid adventures of her past to new suspicious, impertinent Slayers - he could see it in her eyes. So whenever they got someone green, a girl who had absolutely no idea what a Slayer even was, Andrew got to explain the Slayer calling and the responsibilities that came with it.

This afternoon, he could tell the new Slayer orientation was going to be a bit rougher than usual. The young man hurried down to the basement and returned with a medium-sized whiteboard, an easel, and a bag of markers. He set this up quickly, ignoring the sarcastic comments of the newbies. They would understand soon enough.

"Ehem," Andrew began, his eyes sweeping his captive audience.

"Oh, brother." Rona rolled her eyes.

"I heard that!"

"You were meant to," she mumbled, but more quietly this time.

Andrew glared at her sternly, then uncapped a green dry-erase marker. "Once upon a time," he intoned in his best storytelling voice, "a girl was chosen. One girl in all of the world, chosen to be Slayer of the Vampyres."

Slightly disturbed, Linea and Zoë exchanged glances. They scooted their stools closer to one another. Although sworn enemies at school, as the only sane people in the room, the girls had to stick together.

Speaking very dramatically, Andrew gave a shortened version of the legend of the Slayer, and then went on in greater detail about Buffy Anne Summers, the Slayer who had changed everything. Every few moments he paused to add something to his stick figures on the whiteboard. He had just gotten to the part about Buffy and her first true love, Angel, when his audience started misbehaving. Linea and Zoë snickered as soon as Angel's name was mentioned. Gunn seemed unable to keep from sneaking glances at Rona, who was doing the same, only more discreetly. There was only one thing Andrew could do to regain their attention: interpretive dance.

"Buffy could hardly believe it when she discovered her love for Angel was reciprocated," he continued, beginning to move his arms in time with the words.

"Recipro-what?" Faith asked.

Linea turned around on her stool. "It means returned."

"It does?" Zoë scrunched up her face, trying to remember. "Oh, hey, it does. Freshman English with Barrows, right? I guess a high school education comes in handy after all."

Faith's face went strangely pale. She stood, mumbled something about checking on Illyria, and left the room.

"Having discovered her true love was a Vampyre," Andrew said loudly, scrambling to keep the story going, "Buffy feared she would have to stake him."

"Angel's a Vampyre?" Linea's head snapped back to the front. "Whoa, I did _not_ see that one coming." She was definitely interested now.

"Please. Haven't you seen a single rom-com? Are you chick flick illiterate? Of course he'd be a Vampyre. It totally ups the romantic tension and Romeo/Juliet doomed love theme. So what did Buffy do, when she found out Angel was a Vampyre? Did she kill him?"

"Unfortunately for you poor sods, the answer's no."

"Well, technically she did. I just came back."

Angel and Spike sauntered into the kitchen, all heavy brows and dangerous ivory fangs. The new Slayer's eyes grew huge.

"Is that dinner?" Spike rubbed his stomach. "I'm starving."

"Nothing like good virgin blood to begin the night," agreed Angel, leering at the girls.

Zoë whimpered. Linea's pale blue eyes rolled up in the back of her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

While Gunn attempted to calm Zoë down, Rona got a glass of cold water and hurried to bring Linea out of her faint. Torn between laughter and shame, the vampires dropped their game faces. They immediately began apologizing to both girls, not daring to look at one another. Andrew collapsed on a stool and buried his head in his hands. Orientation was proving to be even harder than he'd thought.

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><p>Illyria couldn't decide which sound was more annoying: the loud conversation and occasional shrieking in the kitchen or the continuous sniffling in the room next door. How in any of the myriad Hells she had known was a former god-king supposed to strengthen her powers if she could never get peace from this ridiculous noise? A moment longer she stood there, fingers outstretched, trembling slightly as she strove to recall the movements to her favorite incantation.<p>

_Sniff._

That was it. Incandescent with rage, Illyria strode into the hall and kicked the adjacent bedroom door down. She would deal with the infernal sniffing. Suddenly the ex-god stopped short, confused by what she saw. The words of blasting vanished from her mind as if they had never existed. Illyria was not sure what she had expected. Perhaps some mewling girl child or the exuberant pet of her pet? Not this.

"Faith?" she asked quietly, surprisingly tentative for someone who had just demolished the bedroom door.

Faith glanced up from the laptop on the bed next to her. One hand hovered over the keyboard; the other gripped a crumpled white tissue. "Hey, Blue." She blew her nose loudly. "You having issues with the door?"

Frowning, Illyria explained, "I heard sniffing. It needed to stop. I couldn't concentrate on my magic."

"My bad." Faith returned to painstakingly typing on her laptop with her index fingers and forced a smile. "No more sniffing."

Illyria's discomfort intensified. Weaklings cried. Not warriors. And although she still did not understand this Slayer business, Illyria did know that Slayers were warriors. Completely out of her depth, she turned to the few remaining memories of the Burkle for answers. "Are you all right?" she asked stiltedly.

The question caught Faith by surprise. Tilting her head to the side, the Slayer gave her a curious look. She hesitated a moment, as if deciding something, then opened her mouth. "Thanks, Blue, but I'm fine. Just got a little upset earlier. One of the new Slayers said something – she didn't mean anything by it, but it kinda hit me like one of your punches . . . I'm trying so hard not to be the screw-up anymore, but sometimes . . ."

"Screw-up?" Illyria was unfamiliar with the word. And what did Faith know about her punches? Had Spike been talking again?

"Failure. Like no matter how hard I try, I keep messing up."

"Oh." She considered this information. The bit of Fred still inside her prompted her to return the confidence with a confession of her own. It was how things were done. "Then sometimes I, too, feel like a screw-up."

"Yeah?" Faith smiled, amused by the out of character humility.

"Yes. I do not understand these mortals and their obsession with the mundane." Agitated now, Illyria paced around the bedroom. "Wesley promised to explain it to me, and then he died. It's all so _confusing – _all these people and words and buildings and rules where there ought to be nothing. Nothing but me and my will. And perhaps a temple," she added with a touch of vanity.

"I don't want to be here," Illyria continued. "I don't want this human body with its cursed _memories_. I dislike looking at those around me and seeing what they truly think. They expect me to act like Fred, to _be _Fred. They keep hoping that eventually their Fred will come back. But she never will, Faith. She never will. This body is mine. And I am not human. I am a demon. And that is something that none of them – none of you – are willing to accept."

While Illyria ranted, Faith had shut her laptop to listen. Now she looked up and met her eyes. "What do you want, Blue?"

Tears of pure frustration burned in Illyria's eyes. "I want to understand why. Why my powers are so hard to reach, why the vampires trust you, why Wesley had to die, why the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart have yet to blast Angel and all the rest of us until we are nothing but a gaping chasm in the ground, why, why, why!" She turned to Faith suddenly, her gaze cold and clear. "Will you help me?"

"What?"

"Will you help me?" Illyria hated repeating herself. "Will you – can you – help me to understand?"

Faith bit her lip, thinking. "I don't understand a lot of it myself, Blue. But yeah, what the hell. I'll help you as much as I can."

Illyria nodded in acceptance.

"Yeah, I'll help," the Slayer continued. "First lesson in understanding the world: how to find the best milkshakes in Cleveland." Faith dug a set of car keys out of her pocket. "Just this once, I'll buy."

Milkshakes were an offer Illyria could not refuse. "Now?" she asked eagerly.

"Just let me check something first." The Slayer opened her laptop and refreshed the Internet browser window. She had one new message. Steeling herself, she opened it.

_Faith – _

_I must admit I was rather surprised – all right, shocked – to hear from you. It's been what – at least six months? Here's the information you asked for. Everything I could find on General Educational Development tests. I think it's great that you're considering taking them. Hope everything's going well for you, wherever you are._

_-Robin_

Faith's eyes softened as she read. After closing the laptop gently, she set it back on the bed. The Slayer stepped carefully over the broken door. Somehow, she was going to have to talk the guys into fixing it. Turning in the doorway, Faith grinned at Illyria. "Come on, Blue. Let's go learn about the world, one chocolate milkshake at a time."

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><p><strong>AN: Reviews are sincerely appreciated.**


	3. The ExMurderer's Club

**Disclaimer: I own nothing from Buffy, Angel, or SuperSmash Brothers. **

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><p>"You sure you want to be Marth again?"<p>

"Quite sure," growled Illyria. As Andrew had not even bothered to try to mask his condescension, she saw no point in hiding her own irritation.

"Suit yourself," the young man shrugged. If losing ten matches with Marth hadn't made her see sense, nothing he could say would help. Besides, their little battles were both upping his kill count and letting him work on that new combo Spike had shown him.

The game started. Marth chased furiously after Andrew's Kirby, his jerky moves betraying Illyria's tension. Luckily for the ex-god king, Andrew was too caught up in the match to notice. He up-tilted, forward smashed, and spammed with that blasted hammer, totally unaware of the rage slowly building in his opponent.

Illyria's confusion with this new world had been only slightly ameliorated, if that. Sometimes she wondered if she'd chosen the right person to teach her. Faith had excellent taste in the strangely pleasing human food, but ever since she started taking night classes, Illyria had been worried. If Faith herself required more knowledge, how could she ever be of any use? But then perhaps this quest for knowledge demonstrated a desire for greater wisdom and understanding. In which case, Illyria could definitely use her. And loath as she was to admit it, for one reason or another, Illyria just liked Faith.

"Gotcha," muttered Andrew vehemently as Kirby's hammer sent Marth flying off the fighting platform. Illyria's controller vibrated unpleasantly in her hand when the little box – X-box, was it? – beneath the television logged her character's death. She responded with a stream of abuse in an ancient demonic language the boy would never even have heard of. After a valiant attempt to pummel his insipid pink puffball into oblivion, she returned to her reflections.

It wasn't that Faith didn't frustrate Illyria. She was automatically accepted by Spike and Angel, while the former Old One still wasn't sure if the vampires trusted her. Faith allowed those squeaky children to run around the house in the afternoon, and evenings were spent training _them_, rather than tackling an enemy who was truly worthy of Illyria's destructive prowess. Also, no matter how annoying all those girls became, the Slayer refused to allow Illyria to incinerate them. Illyria was fully aware of the selfishness of her point of view, but then her world was a cold, selfish one. Wesley was dead; Illyria didn't really care for anyone else.

"Illyria, are you paying attention?" The boy elbowed her to get her to focus. Fool. Didn't he realize how much greater her own consciousness was? Apparently not, for he continued to bother her. "I just killed you for the third time. You only have one life left."

Suddenly reminded of Marth's mortality, Illyria concentrated solely on the match. She battled bravely, but the plastic buttons on the remote were nothing like real weapons. Within two minutes, Andrew knocked her off the platform. Again. The game's cheesy music and the ridiculous dancing puffball celebrated her defeat. Fingers clenching around the controller, Illyria gritted her teeth. Very well. She would learn this silly game, and then, when the time was right, she would annihilate Andrew. And that would be a delicious victory indeed.

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><p>Spike didn't like training the new Slayers any more than Illyria did. He resented the eagerness he saw – both in Linea and Zoë and in Rona's team. It reminded him of the sixteen-year-old Buffy Summers as he had first met her, and that just led to all sorts of painful memories. At least Linea and Zoë still lived with their parents and not full time at the halfway house. He wasn't sure he could handle that.<p>

"Let's start a club," he said out of the blue to Faith and Angel. The three of them had retreated to the basement as Andrew and Illyria's video game battle grew even more heated.

Sprawled on the floor, Faith glanced up from the GED homework she'd been working on for the last half hour. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Spike turned to Angel, who was seated at the opposite end of the broken down couch. "Peaches?"

Angel set down his copy of _Les Mis_ reluctantly. "What kind of club, Spike?" he sighed, knowing that he wouldn't be left in peace with his book until he did.

"An ex-murderer's club," the blond vampire announced proudly.

"What?" Faith stopped trying to think of words that rhymed with "spiral".

"He's bored." Angel picked his book up again. He strongly identified with Val Jean, and unlike most of Hugo's modern readers, he had actually been alive – okay, not totally dead – for the battle of Waterloo.

"Of course I'm bored! You two just sit there like a pair of lumps – what else is a bloke supposed to be but bored?"

"You could have gone with Gunn and Rona on that raid," the older vampire reminded him.

Spike frowned peevishly. "Yeah, well, slime demons and teenage girls simpering all over me aren't really my style, if ya know what I mean, mate."

Snickering, Faith erased a line on her paper and scribbled down something new. "Zoë likes you."

"I'd noticed," he replied shortly. "Andrew should never have told those girls about Buffy an' me."

"Ehem."

"All right, all right, about Buffy and you either, you great sod. Now they've got stars in their eyes every time they look at us. They chase me more, though, so it's obvious that I am the handsomer of the two of us."

"Or they realize that Buffy and I had true love while you were just a booty call," Angel pointed out smoothly, raising his book so that it halfway hid the smirk on his face.

"Hey, guys, listen to this!" Faith interrupted before the bickering could turn into all out war.

"There once was a vampire named Spike

Who went for a ride on his bike.

He cried, 'This is a bust!'

As he turned into dust

For his head was chopped off by a pike."

Shaking with laughter, Angel buried his face in his book.

Wounded, Spike demanded, "Why'd you have to use my name? Why not his?"

"Do you know how hard it is to find rhymes for 'Angel'? I had it bad enough with 'Spike' as it was."

"Oh." That slightly mollified him. "So . . . about the club . . ."

The Slayer flipped her notebook shut and sat up, giving Spike her attention. This conversation was more interesting than writing a haiku, whatever that was. "An ex-murderer's club?"

"Yeah. For people like us. The ones who've murdered and then felt sorry for it after."

The copy of _Les Mis_ slid into Angel's lap again. "_Felt sorry_?"

Spike flushed. He knew how inadequate those words were. 'Sorry' didn't even begin to cover the burning, freezing, stabbing pain of guilt and regret and horror and remorse that were just the price for entry on the road to redemption. Never mind all the self-inflicted emotional torture that came after.

"It's okay, Angel," Faith said in a quiet voice. "We know what he meant. Go on, Spike."

"Anyway, I was thinking as how we should form a club. 'Cuz, you know, vampires with souls, this whole thing's kind of our forte. And Faith's the Slayer who went off the deep end and came back again."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence in my sanity."

"You wrote a limerick where I died for your bloody homework. And not even a good, epic, heroic limerick."

"Limericks aren't supposed to be epic or heroic," Angel reminded him.

"I know that!" The poet in Spike was mortally offended. "Do I need to remind you that I used to write brilliantly myself?"

"If you start reciting that d-mn effulgent thing again, I will murder you and feel no remorse. And then where would your club be?"

Resisting the pressing and desperate urge to slam his fist into Angel's face, Spike focused on the positive. "So you'll join?"

His grandsire sighed. "If it means you'll shut up and let me finish," he gestured to his book, "then, yes, I will join."

"Faithy?"

"What's a haiku?"

Rightly interpreting this as a 'yes', Spike moved to the floor and began explaining haikus, sonnets, and free verse to Faith. If she was serious about this school thing – and he was beginning to think she really was – then as a fellow member of the Ex-Murderer's Club, it was his sacred duty to help her pass her GED exam. And of course Angel was too busy rereading Hugo's blasted novel to bother. Some friend he was. Hmm. Spike could exploit that next time they got into it. Which should be in about twenty minutes.

"I think I've got it!" Faith announced fifteen minutes later, gazing at her notebook covered in eraser marks and doodles.

"Write your haiku?" Spike attempted to sneak a peek at the paper, but Faith clutched it to her chest, preventing him.

"Let's hear it, then." Angel closed his book. He had rather forgotten how boring the treatise on Waterloo could be, even to someone who had tortured, murdered, and drained the Duke of Wellington's mistress just days before the battle.

Inhaling deeply, Faith began:

"Darkness has fallen.

But for memories and dreams,

I walk here alone."

She paused and set her notebook in her lap. "Well?"

"I like it," answered Angel honestly.

"Bit dramatic, but not bad for a beginner, pet. Much better than that limerick."

"Hey, I happened to like that limerick."

"Indeed." With that sniff, the one scarred eyebrow lifted ever so slightly in derision, for an instant William the Bloody Awful looked out of Spike's face. His eyes met Angel's in a moment of nostalgia, and the impending argument vanished like so much smoke.

While the vampires had been "discussing" poetry, Faith glanced through her homework assignment one last time. Worksheet, check. Limerick, haiku, check, check. Now all she had to do was write a sonnet, and she was one week closer to passing her GED test. The writing part of it, anyway. She'd have to ask Angel for helping on the reading. Maybe he could recommend some books that wouldn't put her to sleep? As for the math section, she had no idea how she was going to survive that. Math was the sun, the Slayer, and the stake to her vampire.

Hopefully Giles would be back by then. They hadn't talked since that last awkward phone call, just a few emails. When Faith told him about wanting to take the GED, however, he had expressed his surprise –and pleasure. Even said he was proud of her. She never thought that would happen. Faith immediately saved that email. It was one of those things that meant something.

"Faith?"

"Huh? Yeah?" They were both watching her now, Angel looking concerned, Spike simply interested.

"If you're done woolgathering, pet, Peaches here and I were wondering what you thought about inducting Andrew and Gunn into this little club of ours. Andrew killed his friend – "

"And Gunn killed Fred's professor – the one who kept sending his students to Hell dimensions."

"What about Illyria?" Some one had to stick up for her.

"Key word's remorse, princess. I dunno if the Bluebird's ever felt remorse."

She could see that. "Oh. Let's just keep it us three, then. Don't want Blue to feel left out."

Nodding his agreement, Angel felt a strange sense of relief. He had screwed up so badly in the past, had hurt so many of the people he'd called friends . . . it was safer to have something that was just Faith and Spike and him. Faith was the friend who never gave up on him, and Spike – well, Angel honestly never knew how he felt about Spike. Were they friends? Enemies? Or that bizarre word Zoë had used that afternoon to describe her changing relationship with Linea – frenemies?

"All right, then," Spike continued smoothly, "we are officially the Ex-Murderer's Club. Officers are as follows: me, President, of course; Faith as vice president or president of vice – however you want to play it, love; and Angel, our chief flunky and overuser of hair gel." Ignoring the older vampire's splutters of rage, Spike took an elegant seat on the couch and surveyed the room imperially. "Right. Now who wants to go get their president a beer?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: My apologies for the delay. School, work... the usual. But finals are over, so hopefully I can spend more time writing. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, and constructive criticism will be put to good use. <strong>

**AiH**


	4. Phenargan

**Disclaimer: I thought about writing a neat little ditty for this disclaimer about how I don't own anything related to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, and then I realized I don't even own a rhyming dictionary. Sad day.**

**Chapter Four: The Ballad of Michael Phenargan**

* * *

><p>"Do vampires ever have to use the bathroom?"<p>

"What?" The lesson in Slayage stopped abruptly. Faith let the stake in her hand fall to the ground. She released her stranglehold on Angel, who also fell to the ground, massaging his neck. Even Spike was taken aback. Zoë started to giggle.

"You heard me." Slightly hurt by their reactions, Linea repeated her question. "Do vampires use the bathroom?"

The older Slayer bent down and retrieved her stake. "I'm not touching this one. Boys?"

Angel got to his feet, exchanging glances awkwardly with Spike.

"I mean, you guys drink quarts of blood daily, and you never gain any weight. So it has to be going somewhere." The redhead squinted at them like they were specimens under her microscope. "Unless you sweat it all off? But you don't seem to perspire that much to me . . . Zoë?"

"Don't ask me, Bill Nye," the cheerleader gasped in between giggles. "I don't know anything about the little fangs room."

Since their slapdash introduction to the world of Slaying, Linea and Zoë had gotten far more comfortable around the vampires and the rather unorthodox methods of the halfway house. Rona was officially connected with Buffy and the rest of the Slayers, and while no one had actually said it aloud, the girls soon gathered that Faith was in the Slayer doghouse over some incognito mission gone wrong.

Weirdly enough, this translated to things being more easygoing and fun over at Faith's. Sure, when there were vamps to dust or Fyarl demons to take down, everyone worked their butts off. But when you got to practice Slaying on a pair of gorgeous vampires who'd promised not to kill you . . . they could forgive a little unorthodoxy.

Overall, Team Angel was actually adapting to the new Slayers rather well. Once Zoë got over the novelty of flirting with older guys who didn't flirt back, she was fairly irritation-free. Linea's worst quality was her tendency to notice the things everyone else glossed over and ask questions about them. Like where were the toilets in Lothlorien, and how come J.K. Rowling didn't mention baths until book four, and then only as a plot device? And why did signs say "No shirt, no shoes, no service," but never once mention pants? Spike admitted this was an excellent question, but even he didn't have an answer for her.

Now, faced with another one of Linea's doozies, the vampires struggled to come up with a decent reply that wouldn't leave Faith and Zoë rolling on the ground laughing at them. Aware of her friends' dilemma, Faith leaned back against a tombstone and smirked. They were just waiting for a couple of vamps to rise, and that could take a while, so any diversion was welcome. Unfortunately for Faith, the diversion she got wasn't the one she wanted.

The Slayer's stomach cramped, and the next second, she found herself on all fours on the soft green grass of the cemetery, projectile vomiting on some poor old married couple's headstone. Everyone jumped back away from her – nothing ruined good shoes quite so well as getting puked on.

"What the He – bleghhhh." Faith's attempt at speech was destroyed by another wave of throwing up.

"That is absolutely revolting. I can't look." Zoë turned around so she wouldn't have to watch, but she couldn't escape the sound. "Ugh. Make her stop."

"Hmm." Linea looked from Faith to the vampires. "Maybe you two are secretly blood bulimics? That would explain it."

"Right. Well, then." It was obvious that Cap'n Forehead wasn't going to be able to do anything about this; he was almost as pale as Faith. Once again, it was all up to Spike. Lovely. The blond vampire leaned forward and clocked Faith a good one on right on the back of the head, catching her just before she face-planted into a pile of vomit.

"Spike!" Angel hissed, horrified.

"She can't puke if she's unconscious, right?" Spike gathered Faith into his arms. She weighed less than he'd expected. Aha! Those leather boots were probably fake. He'd known it all along. "Right, Angel?"

As per usual, Linea's was the voice of unwelcome scientific reason. "I wouldn't count on it."

"Bloody brilliant. Well, I'll just see you all back at the house, then." He set off across the cemetery, somewhat hampered by the fact that he could not see his feet. Yes, he was leaving Peaches alone with the Twin Terrors. Peaches could deal.

* * *

><p>"Blue! Open up! Come on, hurry!" Spike jammed his finger into the doorbell repeatedly and kicked the bottom of the door in frustration. This blasted Slayer was getting heavier with every passing second.<p>

Finally, the door opened to an obviously annoyed Illyria. She took one look at the unconscious Faith and pursed her lips in distaste. "Are you copying your cavemen ancestors, Spike? Is this how you get women now?"

At any other time, Spike would have found that funny – or at least worthy of a sarcastic retort. Not now. He staggered inside. "A little help would be nice."

Illyria ignored the hint, and he dropped Faith on the hallway carpet. The Slayer instantly came to. She gasped, "Oh, G-d," held her hands to her mouth, and bolted for the bathroom.

"Faith is ill as well. I see now why you were carrying her. Why did you not just say so?"

"As well? Who else?"

"Andrew vomited all over the X-box ten minutes after your 'patrolling party' left," she sulked. "Gunn referred to him as Linda Blair – I do not know why – and took him to the hospital. You might call him. I do not think they have seen the doctor yet."

"I'll do that. Thanks, Blue." Spike wandered down the hallway. Knocking on the bathroom door as a matter of courtesy, the vampire went in to find Faith with her head halfway down the toilet. "You doin' okay, pet?"

Mixed in with the gurgles and gasps for air was some unmistakable profanity.

"Yeah, didn't think so. Here." He tore off a length of toilet paper and handed it to her. "Wipe your mouth. When this calms down a bit, I'll find you a bucket or something, and we'll get you into bed. All right?" Spike brushed a strand of dark brown hair out of Faith's face. "I'll be back in a minute."

Sitting in the kitchen, the vampire dialed Gunn's cell. The man picked up moments later, and Spike asked him to get double of Andrew's prescription, whatever it turned out to be. He could manage playing nursemaid for a few hours, but if Linea and Zoë caught this throw up bug and decided to stay at the house . . . Spike was definitely not prepared for that.

He ran into Illyria in the living room. "Want to help me with Faith?"

Shuddering, the ex-god king shook her head. "Absolutely not. Human illnesses are far outside my realm of experience, and after Andrew's display earlier, I would prefer for them to stay that way."

"Suit yourself," he shrugged. "Do you know where Faith put the mop bucket?"

Silently, she pointed to the cabinet beneath the sink.

"Thank you." Grabbing the bucket, he returned to the bathroom. Faith's puking had slowed down enough for her to stagger to her bedroom, her arms wrapped around the bucket, just in case. The Slayer sat down slowly on the edge of her bed and struggled out of her jacket. Spike didn't help; he could see she wanted to do this herself.

Even Faith's independence had its limits, however. "Hate to ask, but could you get my shoes? If I lean over, my intestines are going to start coming out of my ears."

"Wouldn't want that." Spike knelt down and had her boots and socks off in seconds. "Good news, luv. Your feet don't smell too bad."

Faith grinned weakly. "Considering the stuff I was tramping through last night, that _is_ good news. Oh, no . . ." She grabbed the bucket and leaned over the side of the bed, heaving. "I'm never eating again."

Right. Spike would believe that one when he saw it. "Lay down, if you can."

"What about my bucket? I've got my priorities, you know."

"Here, how about this? I'll sit with you and hand you the bucket. In return, you don't hurl chunks all over me. Deal?"

The Slayer frowned. "Why are you being so nice to me, Spike?"

"Scoot over." Balancing the bucket precariously, the vampire wedged himself onto the bed next to Faith. "One, because I, being an adventurous bloke who likes to add a little texture to my morning cuppa AB neg, have since discovered that some things do not mix well together. Like human blood and sauerkraut. Nearly saw my own intestines that time. So that's one reason. The other is that if you drowned in your own vomit after I knocked your lights out – well, pet, it'd kinda be my fault, wouldn't it? Then I'd be an ex-ex-murderer, and I couldn't be President anymore. And with you dead, the job'd go to that sod Angel. You know we couldn't have that."

"Eugh. Gimme the bucket."

* * *

><p>Angel, Linea, and Zoë returned from patrolling at the same time that Gunn and Andrew got back from the E.R. The girls had been teasing Angel about a potential relationship with Spike. They stopped instantly when they saw how white Andrew's face was.<p>

"Lend a hand?" Gunn panted as he tried to keep the very unsteady Andrew on his feet.

In less than a second, Angel had an arm wrapped underneath Andrew's shoulders. Even with the extra support, however, the young man still wobbled. Gunn didn't look so hot, either. Beads of sweat dripped off the black man's forehead, and he kept clutching at his stomach with his free hand.

"Angel, man, I'm not feeling so good."

The vampire groaned silently to himself. "Linea, Zoë, help Gunn. I'll get Andrew." With a grunt of effort, Angel lifted Andrew up and carried him, bridal style. "Not a word to Spike, any of you."

Luckily for Angel, the only person they ran into was Illyria. She already knew Andrew was sick, so she didn't bother jumping to any awkward conclusions.

"What did the doctor say?" she asked Gunn, following the other five into Andrew's small bedroom, which was covered floor to ceiling in various movie posters.

"Stomach flu," he answered shortly. Disentangling himself from the teenagers' helping hands, Gunn reached inside his jacket and withdrew a packet. "Doc says it's been going around town. First comes the vomiting, then some serious weakness." He nodded at Andrew, who was only half-conscious and refusing to let go of Angel. "I told him we shared a house with a lot of roommates. He prescribed five times the normal amount."

"The normal amount of what?"

Gunn thrust the package into Zoë's hands. "Something called Phenargan, I think?"

"There once was an old man named Michael Phenargan.

He threw up all on his chinnegan.

Wiped it up and then he hurled again.

Poor old Michael Phenargan,

Begin again," sang Andrew groggily.

Angel immediately dropped him onto the bed. "Oh, no."

Exchanging glances, Linea and Zoë shook their heads at one another. "We'll take it from here."

"You obviously aren't prepared to handle this – no offense."

"So why don't you and Spike take care of the car clean up – looks like Andrew had a little accident. We ladies will tend to the injured. Right, Illyria?"

Deeply disturbed by this change in the chain of command, Illyria blinked at Zoë. "Yes. I will help you."

Zoë grinned so widely the Cheshire Cat would have been jealous. "You see, Angel, we got this. Hop along."

The vampire was almost as discomfited as Illyria. "Where's Spike?"

Linea raised one eyebrow archly. It was a talent she had been learning from Zoë. "With Faith. Where did you think?"

* * *

><p>Working their fastest, it still took the vampires over half an hour to clean Gunn's truck out completely. Even then, the scent of vomit lingered. No matter how many air fresheners they stuck in odd places like beneath the passenger seat and dangling off all the inside door handles, Angel and Spike just could not get rid of the smell.<p>

At half past one, Linea and Zoë came out to say that it was a school night and they absolutely had to go. Both Andrew and Faith had progressed to the weakness stage, and Gunn's vomiting seemed to be slowing. For the moment, Illyria was holding down the fort.

"You get the feeling they brought that stomach bug thing with 'em?" Spike wondered in a soft voice as they watched the girls drive away in Zoë's Camry.

Angel sighed. "Probably. Come on. Let's go check on the patients."

"Ha! Rescue Blue, you mean?"

Spike's grandsire nodded in one of their rare moments of camaraderie. "Exactly."

* * *

><p>Faith was mostly asleep when Angel came into her room. Mostly, but not completely. She hadn't been this weak since the loss of her Slayer powers for those Trials when she turned eighteen, and there were some major flashbacks going on. It was impossible for her to totally relax and go to sleep.<p>

"Hey," she said quietly, startling him.

Visibly miffed, Angel pretended to brood. "I thought I was being sneaky," he complained.

She shrugged. "Slayer, remember? If you sneak up on me, I get dead. How was patrolling?"

"Not bad. Taught the girls some new tricks, dusted four vamps total. Tried to convince them that Spike and I aren't secretly having a torrid love affair." Angel mimicked the Slayer's nonchalant shrug. "And then they decided to come in and play Florence Nightingale."

"Who?" Faith attempted to sit up, but her head went all woozy. She fell back against the pillows. "D-mn."

"You all right?"

"No. I can't fight, can't move, can't sleep. I hate Phenargan!" Her rant continued for fifty seconds until it devolved into swearing.

The vampire knew her well enough to just let her curse and get it all out of her system. "You okay?" he asked again when the profanity finally died away into silence.

"I'm weak." The Slayer's pained voice betrayed her fear. "What if something happens?"

"Then I'll be here." Angel sat down on the bed, unknowingly taking Spike's earlier position. "Want me to tell you a bedtime story?"

Faith looked over at him in the darkness. With anyone else, she would have wondered if they were for real, but this was Angel. He only did ridiculous stuff like this with the utmost sincerity. Besides, it was something the Mayor would have done, and that alone made it comforting. Unconsciously, she moved closer. "Okay."

"Ehem." Angel cleared his throat. If he was going to tell a story, he was would do so in style. "Once upon a time" –

"In a galaxy far, far away," picked up a smug British voice from outside the door.

"What the – "

Spike and Andrew strode into the room. The latter still looked pale. "I brought animal crackers!" he announced triumphantly. "The frosted kind, not the nasty regular ones."

"Are you going to be telling about the Fett? 'Cuz Andrew here gets a little overexcited when you're talking about the Fett."

"I do not!"

Gunn and Illyria followed them in, Gunn still clutching a bucket. "Dude, hate to break it to you, but you totally do."

"I myself have seen the nauseating adoration that this boy has for all things George Lucas."

They settled themselves on the edge of the bed. Chomping noisily on his animal crackers, Andrew stared at Angel with expectant eyes. Spike smirked and commandeered the sole unoccupied pillow.

"So… tall, dark, and forehead ... what story are you going to tell us?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This would have been posted sooner, but we've had some huge wildfires lately, and so I spent the morning dousing the remnants of a fire by a friend's trailer. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, and any ideas for future one-shots are welcome.  
>Until next time,<br>AiH **


	5. Family

**Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with the Buffyverse.**

**A/N: My apologies for the hiatus. I moved halfway across the country for school and then fractured my fibula. But now I'm back, and updates should be faster. And now, on to the story!**

* * *

><p>Usually after a late night hunt, Peaches and I hang out in the basement or play video games or spar or pretend one another doesn't exist. But Faith has a new Slayer in the house, and this one's a <em>real<em> piece of work. Christina, her name is, and she likes hurting things. Not for the pure hedonistic pleasure of it, either. Nah, this girl likes pain the way Angelus likes pain. So, ever since Christina got here, we've been spending way too much time together in that little room of ours. Gunn and Andrew put a lock on our door, and Bluebird did something special that's supposed to push away intruders.

Some of the girls we get are like Faith, just a bit more or a bit less messed up. Some of 'em are the running away type who just happen to run away to Faith. Guess she's still got the whole "Rogue Slayer" thing going for her. But Christina's different from all of them. She's not an overzealous little girl. She's twenty-four, and she likes killing things slowly. That first night she was here . . . Faith took us all hunting just to see how Christina fought. Never felt the creeps that bad since little psycho Slayer decided to cut my hands off. Christina lit some poor devil on fire. Didn't even know she had a lighter on her till then. He burned nearly to ashes before Gunn got a hand free and threw a stake into him.

Don't think I've ever seen Faith that mad. Not even when she an' I were havin' our massive throwdown. We finished off that nest and then went straight home. No drinks, no banter, no traipsing through alleyways to draw out any hungry beasties. Nah, we came right back. Faith left Christina with Gunn and Illyria and Andrew – that boy's got a good pair of eyes when he wants to, and he's the only one of us considered an "impartial observer". Then Faithy sent the girls home. They must have realized something was up, 'cause they went, even though it was barely ten o'clock.

Against my valiant protestations, Faith ordered Angel and me to stay in our room. I hate taking orders as a rule, but Peaches said "yes" afore I could say "no". Prolly had something to do with the intense looks laden with meaning that they kept exchanging. Sometimes, those two . . . but that's another story. Well, no, actually, it's part and parcel of this one. But I'll get to that later.

Since that first night, Peaches and I have been spending far too much time together. It's not like we got much to talk about, anyway. Well . . . not much we want to talk about. And there's only so many hair jokes you can make before the stakes come out, and then there's always the debate about how to get an anti-violence spell in our room. Which neither of us really wants, to be honest. We like being able to knock the snot out of each other every once in a while – okay, more like every day.

So sure we spent an hour on the past, but since then, we've been playing variations on a game called Would You Rather. Linea and Zoë taught it to us on one really long stakeout when Faith had night classes. At first Peaches didn't want to play, but after two days of pointless card games (in which I swindled him blind), I talked him into it. We started off all general like, but soon we were on to the real questions.

"Darla or Drusilla?"

"Dru, o'course." I nearly shivered. Not that I'd ever admit it, but in some ways Darla had always been scarier than Angelus. Maybe it was a'cause Angelus was attracted to me – not like that, you nasty-minded sods. Angelus thought it was fun to have another male around, to "train me right". Darla just saw me as expendable. And no matter how our story ends, I'll always love Dru. Go on, call me crazy – she already is.

"Of course." Peaches' sarcasm didn't bother me. I think I've finally developed an immunity. "Your turn."

"Darla or Buffy?" I knew it was a low blow. I guess that immunity wasn't working so well after all. Besides, the game would be boring if we only ever asked questions to which we already knew the answers.

Angel frowned, his giant forehead looking even larger and paler as his eyebrows drew together in frustration. I was sprawled across my bunk, my head dangling over the side so I could make faces at the Poofter when he took too long to answer or think of a new question.

"If it weren't for Darla, I never would have met Buffy," he mumbled to himself. I could tell he was trying to talk himself into something.

"Just answer the d-mn question."

He sighed. "Fine. Buffy." A slight pause while he thought. "Buffy or Dru?"

No way in Hell was I answering that question. I swung back up onto the top bunk. "Buffy or Faith?"

Silence. Now we were both in a mood. Neither of us spoke for almost two minutes, when I exhausted my ample supply of patience. "Well, then?"

"You're supposed to answer my question first, Spike."

"Not gonna happen, Forehead Man. So which is it? Faith or Buffy?"

Still no answer. I could practically feel the anger emanating from the bunk beneath me. And then I got an idea.

"You like her."

"What?"

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. "You like Faith, don't you?"

Peaches' voice was far too casual. "Spike, if I didn't like Faith, if she wasn't my friend, I wouldn't be here right now."

This was as good as him outright admitting it. I nearly crowed with delight. "So you do have a thing for Slayers . . . I thought that was just a joke of Lorne's."

"I do not," Angel spluttered, but I wasn't about to let him get away with it.

"You should take her out. Doesn't seem like Faith's had much fun since she brought us back and knowing our Slayer, that isn't from lack of willing gents to have fun with. Hey, Angel-cakes, you reckon she fancies you? That would explain a lot . . ." I reflected on those meaningful glances but didn't bring them up. I am a master of tact.

Angel was too flustered to answer me – funny how things Angelus would have laughed about and cheerfully exploited make Angel uncomfortable – so I continued on as this brilliant idea of mine unfolded.

"You should ask her out. Dinner, dancing . . . you do know how to court a woman, don't you? Since Faith is a woman, not a teenage girl, you'll need to be a bit more . . . more this time."

His retreat into silence was immature, and it made me want to punch him right in the big shiny forehead. I decided to forbear, however.

"Look, I'm not talking about true love or soulmates or perfect happiness or any of that drivel. One date, Angel. Even you can't screw that up too badly. And come on . . . isn't it time you moved on? Gave yourself another chance?"

Finally, he answered me. "Spike, what are you doing?"

"I'm so bloody bored that I'm playing matchmaker with my rival and . . . Faith." Couldn't think of the proper word to describe that girl. She was more mercurial than a summer's eve that couldn't decide whether to thunderstorm or not. But I liked her, which prompted this next thought. "You'd better not hurt her."

"What?" Angel was only half-listening. No surprise there.

"I said you'd better not hurt her. 'Cause if you do . . ."

Just then, our door flew open. Peaches instinctively jumped to his feet as Christina sprinted into the room, Illyria hot on her heels.

"Duck, you imbeciles!" shouted Blue as she struggled to pin Christina down. With Fred, I would have called that a scream. Illyria, however, didn't scream.

I, being brave and valiant, leapt down from the top bunk. Psycho Slayer was wriggling so hard that even Illyria was having trouble containing her. I stepped forward to help when a hand closed over my wrist and pulled me back. "Careful!"

"What the he – let me go!" And then I smelled it.

Somehow, Christina had managed to spill gasoline on the floor. A red plastic jug lay on its side, inches from where she was grappling with Blue. Its lid was off, and from the giant wet stain on our carpet – a stain that was slowly spreading – nearly empty. And there was a lighter still clenched in Christina's hand, the hand that was repeatedly punching Blue in the nose.

Christina started shrieking and thrashing even harder, and Blue began to lose her grip.

"Screw you!" howled the Slayer, her eyes bright and demented and locked on mine. Why couldn't she have been staring at Angel? Why was it always me? "Screw you and every other vampire! You demons – parasites – preying on the innocent – destroying the world – it's all your fault!"

That was enough. Gas or no gas, I was not going to put up with this anymore. "Move over, Blue." I shook off Angel's hand and moved forwards.

Christina laughed and clicked the lighter. Before anyone could stop her, she threw it at the puddle of gasoline. "Go to Hell." The Slayer twisted out from under Illyria, got to her feet, and sprinted from the room as flames erupted towards the ceiling. I stared at them, transfixed.

"That way," Angel shoved me towards the other wall. "Go around it, not through it, Spike."

For a second there, he almost sounded concerned. Angel didn't give me time to think about it, though. He pushed me around the fire, and then we were running for the door. Illyria was already gone, chasing after Christina. I could still hear the Slayer shrieking, and then the front door opening and slamming shut.

As we reached the hallway, Gunn and Andrew met us. Gunn held a fire extinguisher, Andrew a cell phone.

"I've called the fire department," he gasped as Gunn pulled the pin and started to spray the fire. "Sun's up. You'd better get to the sewers."

I didn't think the fire was that bad, but if he'd already called… "All right." I turned to head for the basement.

"Where's Faith?"

Andrew winced. "Christina knocked her out. She came around in time to follow Illyria out the door."

I heard the faint squealing of sirens. The firemen were on their way. "Oy. Forehead. Let's go."

So it was we spent our Sunday morning camped out in the Cleveland sewers. We missed Faith and Illyria knocking Christina out and making up a very convincing story about their friend Chris who got roaring drunk and tried to set the house on fire. We missed Gunn converting the smallest bedroom into a cell and locking an unconscious Christina in it. We missed Faith calling Giles and yelling at him for a minute for sending her a psychopath – and then apologizing to him for ten. We missed Andrew receiving a call from Slayer headquarters bawling him out for allowing Christina to get out of hand.

Peaches and I just there in that dark, damp sewer, oblivious to all the hullabaloo going on above our heads. After a while, Angel brought up our earlier conversation.

"You said I'd better not hurt Faith." Even without looking at him, I could tell that he was frowning.

"Yeah."

"You know I wouldn't do that."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"Then why . .. ?"

"Cuz Faith's my friend, and if you do hurt her, I'd have to stake you. Which I'm not really interested in, 'cuz you're all the family I got left."

He looked at me then, a queer glint in his eye. "You mean that, Spike?"

Bugger it all, I hated him for making me repeat it. "Yes."

Angel smiled at me, a real smile, the kind he used to reserve for Fred. "To family."

Something here was off. This was _not_ how he usually acted. But it was nice, for once, to not be pretending to be enemies, to have him admit that we were something more than rivals. I smiled back cautiously. "To family."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hope you enjoyed the change in POV. Review?**


	6. Dear Dairy

**Disclaimer: Everything that seems to belong to Joss Whedon probably does. I own nada.**

**Ch. 6 - Dear Dairy, AKA the Confessions of a Teenage Matchmaker  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Dear Journal, October 10th, 2004<p>

Mom gave me another one of these for my seventeenth birthday. Funny. You'd think after 8 years and a thousand hints about clothes, music, a new phone – even gift cards! – that she'd stop giving me journals. Nope. Guess Mom's too solidly Mom to take a hint. And honestly, in some ways that's kind of a relief.

My name's Zoë. Zoë Nicole Errasserat. Yeah, last name? Totally not my call, just FYI. Neither was Nicole. Okay, so technically I wasn't born when any of it was chosen. But I like the Zoë part.

The cool thing about these journals is that Mom promises never to read them, and she means it. She keeps David and Joey out of them, too, which is a huge relief. In these journals, at least, I can be totally honest and write whatever it is I'm thinking.

Right now I'm sitting in homeroom – save that rant for later – and James Thrasher is staring avidly at Linea Parker. (I use words like 'avidly' so if Mr. Burkiss ever asks what I'm doing, I can tell him I'm practicing vocab words for the SAT. Brilliant, no?) Anyway, the funny thing is that Linea keeps staring back at James, but they keep doing it in turns and haven't caught one another at it yet. Hehehe….

Hold up. Aren't they in band together? I know she is. Hmm. Let's see. Replace those cute jeans and polo with a tacky band uniform, cover up that curly dark hair with a – darn, what's the word? Oh, yeah. Shako. See, I _do_ listen when Linea talks. Sometimes. So, yep, put him in a shako, hide those abs with a set of drums… he's totally in the band. I'm going to set them up. They'd be perfect. He's taller than she is by a good two inches, they're both in the band, and Linea is legit pretty when I can talk her into contacts and letting me do her makeup, even if she does call me Galinda for some weird reason.

How does a girl like me come to hang out with a girl like Linea? It's complicated. Extraordinarily complicated. I'd draw a flow chart for you, but I left my colored pencils in my locker, and I'm not going to use one of my eyeliner ones. So no flow-charty fun. I'll just have to explain it in words.

While Linea and I exist in completely different social strata (she = band nerd, me = varsity cheerleader), we have inexorably (SAT word, Mr. Burkiss!) been drawn together by a shared ability. We are both Slayers, girls who have been endowed with superpowers (super speed, super strength, super hott in my case) and called to defend humanity from the vampires and demons and other lovely creatures that go bump in the night. Sounds like a load of crap, doesn't it?

That's what I thought, until I saw my first vampire. Yeah, it's actually _NOT_ a load of crap. So now Linea and I – we used to hate each other, by the way – hang out almost every night in this house where an older Slayer, her friends Andrew and Gunn, two vampires with souls – they exist, too – and some sort of ex-demon-god-thing covered in Technicolor blue war paint. We research Evil, we Slay things, we practice beating the crap out of each other, and sometimes we cook.

I go there every night after cheerleading practice, sometimes even after football games. Mom and the boys have started to ask why I'm gone all the time – what do I tell them? Do I tell my mom I have to go kill Fyarrl demons and stake vampires? Or do I say I can't help save the world because I have All-State cheerleading tryouts or it's my night to babysit? -sigh-

So here's my list of problems to solve/Things To Do:

1) Figure out Slaying vs. Babysitting vs. Cheerleading

2) Find a good way to explain why I talk to Linea now to the squad.

3) Get rid of Linea's glasses.

4) Actually do my Trig homework.

5) Get James to ask Linea out on a date.

6) Don't flirt with James anymore. Stop it, Zoë! He's not the hottest guy in school, just the hottest one in homeroom. You are more than a flirting airhead cheerleader!

7) Do not be a flirting airhead cheerleader.

8) Wash the slime demon entrails out of my cheer sweatpants.

9) Find a boyfriend.

I think that's enough to be getting on with, don't you? And the bell's about to ring. See you tomorrow!

Luv,

Zoë

* * *

><p>Dear Journal, October 11th, 2004<p>

You know, I used to write "Dear Diary", but I misspelled it once on the outside of my second journal, and then Eliza Lockhart made fun of me for calling my journal "Dairy". So I've been writing to my "Dear Journal" ever since. Except for that time eighth grade year when I wrote to Orlando Bloom. Moving on…

So yesterday's list. Let's keep this brief.

1) No solution. Cheered till 6, Babysat till 10, Slayed till 1, got to bed around 2, woke up at 7:30. Life sucks.

2) Hovering between an excuse and actually telling the girls that Linea's pretty cool, and my friend. Next time they bring it up, I'll say something. I swear.

3) Linea threatened to steal my flatiron if I so much as touched her glasses. I'm rethinking this one.

4) Did the Trig while babysitting.

5) No luck as yet.

6) Trying _really_ hard.

7) See above.

8) Thank goodness for Shout, Greased Lightning, and Tide To-Go pens. Otherwise I'd have demon gunk on at least half my wardrobe.

9) Too tired to find a boyfriend.

So last night I was thinking about Linea and how I need to get her a date when I notice something. Faith – Slayer boss lady – and Angel – hott souled vampire numero uno – have a thing for each other. So do Spike – hott souled vampire numero two – and Illyria – Technicolor blue demon-god-? in human form. Although Illyria's a girl, so Technicolor blue demon-goddess-? Gunn's already dating Rona – another Slayer. And I'm honestly not sure what team Andrew plays for.

Now I've got this idea – what if I managed to set everyone up on a date? Somehow, I am gonna pull this off. I will be epic. A matchmaker extraordinaire. So what if I'm the only varsity cheerleader without a boyfriend on the football team? Saving the world one dateless person at a time, passing Trig, these things take work. And Linea says that if I stop being a hypocrite, the Earth will stop orbiting around the sun. Sometimes my best friend's a jerk. ;)

Things to Do:

1) Cheer Practice

2) Talk to James, Angel, Spike, and Gunn

3) Do today's Trig.

4) Is Andrew gay?

5) Sleep

Uh oh. Here comes Burkiss. Coprolites!

-Z

* * *

><p>Dear Journal, October 12th, 2004<p>

So I guess there's something – someone – that I forgot to mention. There's a crazy Slayer in the house at the moment. Her name is Christina, and Faith has her locked up in the back bedroom. It's a long story, and I've only got 30 minutes in homeroom and a lot to tell you, so let's just summarize: Christina is crazy. She tried to kill the vamps – our vamps. So Faith locked her up. Sometimes they have shouting matches through the door. Chris's been locked up all week, and apparently the big important people from Slayer headquarters are gonna be here Saturday to deal with it. Why it's taken them so long, I don't know. Andrew said something about it being a punishment. He's been kinda down lately. Hmm . . . maybe he liked Chris? Nah, gay or straight or somewhere in between, Andrew has better taste than that.

That's kinda harsh, you say? Meh. Christina screamed white trash. And she has creeper eyes. Linea agrees. Linea also says that Faith is white trash, but I disagree. Faith has better clothes. And she could kill me with one hand. Maybe even without the hand.

Last night we didn't go out to Slay. Instead, we sat around playing video games, sparring, and masticating weird Chinese takeout. Masticate = SAT word. I guess no one felt comfortable leaving Christina alone.

Angel got put in charge of sparring 'cuz Faith had GED homework. You can always tell when it's algebra. She gets these dark shadows under her eyes, and she can barely speak English. Weird, she sat outside Christina's door to do the math. I think I heard her say the profanity helped?

Honestly, I like practicing hand-to-hand with the guys. They're fast, they're strong, they're smart, they're hott, and surprisingly patient. After some clandestine (Hi, Mr. B!) maneuvering, I managed to end up fighting Angel. Under cover of Illyria belittling Andrew, I brought up the Faith-date idea. He looked at me oddly with his gorgeous brown eyes and asked me what made me think of that? I insisted vehemently that it was nothing. He asked if I'd talked to Spike. Insulted, I said "No!" and punched him in the face. Guess Faith's rubbing off on me. Fifty push-ups later, he let me go fight Linea. Tyrant.

Talking to Spike was easier. The blond vampire just raised his sexy scarred eyebrow and said, "Now, that's an idea." Then he successfully kicked my butt in Super Smash Brothers Brawl – both literally and figuratively.

Didn't need to talk to Gunn. He was out on a date with Rona all last night. When are they going to make it official?

After Angel, James is gonna be my toughest guy to talk to. I need to make him think it's his idea to ask Lin out. I've already considered and discarded the following plans:

1) Outright tell him to.

2) Arrange a double date.

3) Kidnap him and brainwash him into thinking Linea's the most beautiful girl in the world.

4) Let him see her Slay.

None of those is satisfactory. I need a stooge. Some guy to suggest he ask her out. Crap. Burkiss is walking through the classroom seeing what we're all working on.

Irascible

Coquettish

Hulking

Fiendish

Nefarious

Chlorofluorocarbons

_Homo Sapiens_

Flabbergasted

Whew! He's gone. And I'm not entirely sure those were all SAT words. Anyway, my next plan is to flirt with Derek Hines at church tonight- he's in the band – and hint that James & Linea would make a cute couple. And then I'll take my brothers home and go kick some undead butt.

Oh, flip. This is going to end with me giving Derek my number, isn't it? I am so screwed. At least Derek doesn't have creeper eyes, right?

TTD:

1) Tell Mom about the B I got on my trig test!

2) Talk to Derek/James.

3) Don't pass out on Andrew's shoulder during post-Slayage snack time.

Ugh, only 2 days till Friday!

Luv,

Zoë Nicole Errasserat

* * *

><p>Dear Journal, 1013/2004

So Derek Hines is actually kinda cute, and Mom made me victory-test blueberry muffins for breakfast this morning! I did not fall asleep at Faith's, and Christina did not break loose. Angel kept giving me weird looks. Spike was giving me appraising ones. Faith finally gave in and asked Linea for math help. Maybe I should do that?

Cheer practice and babysitting tonight. Kinda looking forward to the break from Slayage. I've missed my brothers. We'll probably end up watching _The Lion King_ and eating mac and cheese. And finish off the muffins. I LOVE muffins. So does Linea. I may have her over to babysit with me. David and Joey would love her hair.

Oh my cow, James is SO staring at her right now. Wonder what Derek said? He was all in for the plan last night, but he hasn't texted me today. Not that I care. Obviously.

Hugs and Kisses (the Hershey kind),

Zoë

* * *

><p>Dear Journal, October 14th, 2004<p>

Success is mine! Linea came over last night, and my brothers adore her. Finally told the squad to back off and leave my friend the heck alone. Heard Linea jokingly tell James that hanging out during 3rd quarter of the football game tonight does not count as a date, but sure, she'd hang with him!

Also, turns out Derek's a senior and he runs track. Who knew that a tuba player could be a cross-country star? So he texted me last night about discussing the "plan". Since it's open campus lunch here, he's taking me to a nearby pizza place. Did I mention he's 6'1" and has killer eyes? XD

And Burkiss has started making his rounds, right on cue. Catch you up on Monday! I think the gang's coming to the football game. Can you see Illyria cheering for a football team? It's kinda hysterical.

Bugger, here comes Burkiss! I'll leave you a little message in the first letter of my SAT words. :)

Fundamentalist

Antediluvian

Reticule

Evanescent

Wary

Effulgent

Lethargic

Laconic,

Zephyr

Occidental

Exultant

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Reviews are greatly appreciated, as would be prompts for future chapters/oneshots.  
>Until next time,<br>AiH  
><strong>


	7. Freak Out

**Disclaimer:  
>Aih: I finally own Buffy and Angel. Yay! Numfar, do the dance of joy!<br>Numfar: -begins the dance of joy, but is interrupted and handcuffed by executives in well-pressed suits-  
>AiH: Dang it. They found me. -runs away-<strong>

* * *

><p>Faith Lehane hadn't been this close to panicking since . . . well, maybe that time with the übervamps when they all thought they were going to die. Either that or Kakistos. Regardless of when she had last been this freaked out, the Slayer was one seriously on-edge ball of stress. And nothing was helping.<p>

Trying for the whole "be a good friend, have a good time" thing, she'd gone to the football game with Angel, Spike, Illyria, and Andrew. Gunn and Rona were on Christina duty. Sandwiched between an overly enthusiastic Andrew and a scornful yet confused Illyria, Faith had no choice but to pay attention. Unfortunately, watching the game and scanning the crowd for potential vampires still left plenty of neurons available for flipping out.

After the game, the gang – Team Faith? Hardly! – congratulated Linea and Zoë, then piled into Gunn's beat up truck and headed home. As soon as Angel parked the car, Faith was out and gone. The Slayer sprinted through the darkened streets to the nearest cemetery. Grateful for the burning in her lungs and the ache of a half-healed quad, she scaled the tall cemetery gate just for kicks. Dropping silently onto the gravel walkway, she paused just long enough to catch her breath. And then the hunt was on.

There was a nest somewhere around here. She'd seen the signs the night before but hadn't mentioned them because it was nearly dawn. And Faith'd had a sneaky feeling that it might come to this tonight.

Fighting always cleared her head better than anything. And by clear, Faith meant _clear_. No platitudes or introspective thoughts. Just plain, thoughtless nothing. Dancing worked okay, too, but it was more difficult to justify tonight. Besides, fighting _was_ dancing. Dancing with weapons and a serious intent to kill, sure, but dancing still.

Faith paused outside a mausoleum in the back north corner of the cemetery. Hidden behind a giant shaggy oak, she watched and listened intently. It would really suck to break into the wrong crypt.

Her timing was excellent. Five minutes after she got there, a pair of sullen voices began arguing over whose fault it was that "dinner" had escaped them. The Slayer held her breath and stepped even deeper into the shadow of the great oak as the owners of the voices walked past her. The two figures pried open the doors of the mausoleum and went in, still bickering. Faith waited thirty seconds, then followed.

Spike and Angel found her a few minutes later, surrounded by four piles of dust and covered in ash herself. She was still fighting the last vampire, a huge, butch, lumberjack type whose upper arms were wider than her head. Angel took a step forward to intervene, but Spike held him back.

"Better him than us."

Realizing she had an audience, Faith switched to annihilation mode. She danced close to the vampire, close enough for him to grab her. As he did so, she shoved her stake between two ribs and up into his heart. The lumberjack vamp collapsed into a cloud of dust. Faith emerged from the mess, coughing slightly and brushing disintegrated vampire off her T-shirt.

"Hey, boys."

"Feel better?" Angel asked ironically.

"Not really. I won't feel better until tomorrow's over and Christina's gone. How'd you find me?"

Spike tapped the side of his nose. "Smell, love."

"You followed my scent. You know how I smell? G-d, never tell me that again. That's freakin' creepy. Useful, yeah, sure, whatever, but creepy."

"I don't know about that. I think Zoë would find it kind of romantic."

Faith glared at Angel. "Zoë _is_ a hopeless romantic," she grumbled and then changed the subject. "Guess we should be heading back. Gunn probably wants a break."

"Soon as we got in the door, he and Rona took off. Said something about wings? It's Blue who'll be wanting a reprieve."

"You saw Gunn?"

"Figured we'd give you some time to punch it out. Knew you wouldn't get too far or in too much trouble," Angel grinned.

"Pity you didn't leave any for us, though. Oh, well. There's always a grand bundle of psychotic Slayer fun waiting for us at home. 'Least we've got Mario Kart."

"How you manage to stay optimistic in the face of such terrible trials has always mystified me, Spike."

"Yep, I'm your personal ray of sunshine. Always happy to shed a little light." The younger vampire smirked as his grandsire glowered at him.

"Boys . . . enough. Let's go home."

While she normally found their bickering entertaining, tonight Faith felt an urgent need to get home and talk to Christina. Much as she disliked the idea, Faith knew she ought to get an idea of what the younger Slayer's story was going to be, particularly if B decided to come herself. Faith squirmed, reminded again of the real reason she needed to get home. There was ash inside her bra, and if she didn't get a shower soon, she was gonna lose it.

* * *

><p>One long, hot shower later, Faith relieved Andrew on guard duty. She waited till the young man had turned the corner into the living room, then pulled the key to Christina's bedroom-prison out of her pocket. She had five minutes before Spike was supposed to come looking for her. Unlocking the door, she went in.<p>

Christina was waiting, her blanket scrunched up into a makeshift rope. She threw this around Faith's neck as soon as the Slayer stepped into the room. Choking, Faith still had the presence of mind to kick the door shut behind her. She dropped to her knees, causing Christina to momentarily relax the pressure on her windpipe. Then Faith jumped up and back, slamming into Christina and knocking her to the floor. The older Slayer wriggled free of the blanket rope and sat down heavily on Christina's stomach.

"Takes more than that to get me," she panted, grabbing the other girl's flailing fists and binding them together with the blanket. "Shouldn't you be tied up? Jeez, I thought Angel was supposed to be good at keeping people prisoner."

Furious at the failure of her escape attempt, Christina burst into a short-lived stream of extremely violent profanity. Faith was unimpressed. She'd heard worse, she'd said worse, and honestly, at this point it was just kind of boring. While Christina kept struggling and swearing, Faith just sat and looked around the room.

Gunn had done a decent job of turning the place into a cell. He'd removed all the furniture – even the curtain rods! – and installed thick iron bars on the windows. Christina got a mattress, two blankets, a thirty-year-old copy of _The Grapes of Wrath_ (Angel's contribution), and that was it. Faith and Illyria had been taking it in turns to accompany her to the bathroom every three hours, and Gunn brought meals in to her three times a day. Given her hatred of vampires, Angel and Spike usually stayed far, far away. And no one in their right mind thought it was safe to leave Andrew alone inside the room with Christina.

"You done?" Faith asked when the torrent of abuse finally petered out. "'Cuz I want to talk to you. And if I were you, and I'd been stuck inside this room with no one to talk to for a week, I'd be bored as hell. Oh, wait. I have been you. Only it was a max security isolation cell, and they left me there for two. That's what happens when you're a confessed murderer who's been on the run. Have you had enough yet, Chris?"

"I hate you." But the younger girl stopped struggling anyway.

Faith shrugged. "Most people do. I'm kinda used to it, sister."

"Let me up!"

"You gonna stop trying to kill me?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Okay." Faith got slowly to her feet and went to lean against the door. "Congrats, Chris. Not many people can get me monologuing."

"They won't do anything to me, you know," Christina spat hatefully from the dark green carpet, twisting her wrists as she worked the blanket rope loose. "Killing vampires, it's not a crime. They'll like me, think I'm useful. At least I've got the stones to do something about those bloodsuckers."

"Even if they have souls?"

"Who cares about souls?" she bellowed, the knots halfway undone. "They're still vampires! They still kill people! They still deserve to die." Her eyes burned with the fervor of fanaticism.

Faith realized that nothing she could say would make the slightest difference to Christina. Everyone got to fight their own way out of the darkness. And quite frankly, the older Slayer was too exhausted and hungry and stressed out to try anymore. "Someday, you're going to get sick of killing, you know," she said tiredly, feeling behind herself for the doorknob. "If you live that long."

"If I live that long? What's that supposed to mean?"

But Faith was sick of this conversation, and she wanted to be out of the room before Christina finished working herself free. Rapping on the door sharply, she signaled to Spike that she was ready to be let out. He knocked back once, then with a slight click of the key in the lock, the door began to open.

"Faith, wait!" called Christina, scrambling onto her knees, some of the fire gone from her eyes.

"What?" the Slayer sighed wearily, half-turning.

"Can we have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow?"

"If there's buttermilk, then yeah, I guess so. Anything else?" She eyed the younger girl suspiciously as if expecting her to break loose at any moment.

"Nope, that's it."

"Right." Faith slipped through the barely open door and almost collided with Spike.

The vampire dodged out of her way and pulled the door shut. Whistling, he turned the key in the lock. "Interrogation go well?"

"Not really. But then, I kinda suck at interrogation."

There came a muffled thump from the room behind them followed instantly by a series of garbled cusswords. Spike sniggered. "Sounds like somebody fell over. And here I was thinking that you'd be an expert at interrogation, Faith. Given all your experience."

She laughed. "I'm really good at being interrogated, but it's different when you're on the other side of the table." Faith didn't mention that sometimes she saw herself peering out from deep within Christina's eyes. Looking at Christina was like looking at a younger, only slightly angrier Faith, and it scared the crap out of her.

"Want to stick Cap'n Forehead on guard duty and go play some Mario Kart?" Spike asked gently, reluctantly watching the Slayer get herself stuck in reflection mode. Not that meditation wasn't important or useful or whatever the hell reason you did it for, but when Faith hit reflective, it was barely half a step away from guilty/brooding. As it was, Peaches did enough brooding for the entire state of Ohio all by himself. Besides, Spike, Andrew, and Illyria were starting to have Mario Kart withdrawals, and they needed a fourth.

Faith resurfaced with difficulty. "Sure thing. Spike, do we have buttermilk?"

"Not a clue. My interests tend to another liquid."

Groaning, Faith checked the locked door one last time. "Are you saying that I have to dig through our fridge to look for it?" Given the crowded state of their refrigerator, this was rather a horrifying thought.

"Yep. 'Fraid so. Now, as your President, I order you to go find Tall, Dark, and Forehead and get him to stand guard."

The Slayer momentarily debated telling him quite explicitly where he could stick that beloved Presidency of his, but she restrained herself. "Aye-aye, Captain."

* * *

><p>After three mindless hours of Mario Kart and devouring two of Andrew's cherished Hot Pockets, Faith gave up on trying to feel less stressed out. The "emissary" from Headquarters would be there by nine, and all she wanted to do was give free range to the panic bubbling and churning inside her. Wandering aimlessly through the house, she wrapped her arms about herself in a kind of hug. It took an indecent amount of self-control to keep her wandering from becoming frenetic pacing.<p>

The pale beginnings of dawn outside seemed to mock her. Too late to hunt, too early for breakfast. Faith envied Andrew, passed out on the couch and snoring, and Illyria, who had retreated to her room to practice Magicks. Since the ex-god had only won four rounds of Mario Kart, they were probably pretty Dark. Even Spike, back on guard duty with Andrew's PSP, had something to distract him. It wasn't fair. If she had to put up with this mounting mixture of anxiety and anticipation, she was going to hit something.

"Hey."

Faith realized belatedly that she'd wandered into Angel's room. "Oh. Hi."

"Got something on your mind?" the vampire asked, setting down his dog-eared copy of _Hamlet_ and sitting up. "Want to talk?"

Without hesitation the young woman flopped down next to him. "Why can't it be morning?" Faith was fully aware that she sounded whiny. Oh, well. Angel had had plenty of experience dealing with her whining.

Angel chuckled softly. "You know, I don't think I've asked that question in over two-hundred years."

"What about the time you were going to off yourself?" He stared at her in surprised disbelief. She shrugged. "B told me, okay? She was real proud of saving you."

"She didn't save me. The Powers did." It was said with bitterness. Whether towards Buffy or towards the Powers, Faith didn't ask. She wasn't a hundred percent sure she actually wanted to know.

"Okay . . . so anyway, why can't it be morning yet? I'm sick of waiting."

"Do you really want them to get here so quickly?"

The Slayer's face fell. "No, not really. Angel . . ."

"Yeah?"

"What if Buffy comes?"

The vampire inhaled sharply, the air whistling in through his teeth. He had been trying so hard not to think about this – that was part of the reason he'd holed himself up with _Hamlet_, actually. "What if she does?"

Faith's features grew pinched. "I think she's still mad at me. Giles and I . . . we kinda went on a little mission behind her back. B wasn't too happy about it. It was the termination of a bad Slayer."

"Bad?" he prompted gently.

Staring down into her lap, the Slayer kept picking at the fringe on Angel's comforter. "Not like me . . . worse than me. Worse than Christina, even. She was killing. A lot. So Giles asked me to help him. The other Slayer tried to kill Buffy, and then it all went to hell. Buff was furious. She thought it was my fault. When she realized Giles was in on it, she got mad at him, too. That's why he's been in London trying to fix things."

"Never thought of you and Giles as co-conspirators." Now it made sense. Now he knew why Faith and Giles emailed or called multiple times a week and why Faith kept referring to "when Giles gets back." It was all starting to fit together.

She shrugged. "I never did, either. Honestly, though, I'm not sure it makes that much difference. B and I, we've never really gotten along – not for more than a night, anyway. So I'm kinda used to her being mad at me. What about you, Angel? Are you going to be okay if Buffy shows up?"

Angel didn't know. He hoped he'd be all right, hoped that finally he would be able to see Buffy without remembering each and every reason that he'd fallen in love with her in the first place and then longing for her with all of his heart. But to be brutally honest, he wasn't sure if he'd made it that far yet. The old vampire forced a smile that fooled no one. "I'll be okay."

Faith raised an eyebrow in disbelief but didn't call him on it. Instead, she reached behind him to grab his copy of _Hamlet_. Flipping the book open, she stared at the words blankly. Even with her GED classes, the text made absolutely no sense. "I'm still dumb," she growled under her breath.

"No, you're not. This is the original Shakespearian English. Here," Angel filched his play back. "I'll read it to you. In iambic pentameter, of course. You may want to get comfortable," he warned. "This might take a few hours."

They had time. "Scoot over," ordered Faith. Ignoring Spike's empty bunk overhead, she sprawled out on her stomach next the vampire. The Slayer wriggled around to get better situated. "Take it away, Fang Boy."

Grinning, Angel intoned in one of his more dramatic voices," The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act I, Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo . . ."

* * *

><p>Nine o'clock found Faith fast asleep with her face buried in Angel's favorite pillow. She hadn't even made it through the firs act, lulled into dreamland by the vampire's polished, articulate tones. Somehow, his voice was the one thing that made her stop freaking out. Until nine o'clock arrived, and the doorbell rang once, twice, three times in quick succession.<p>

The Slayer sat up with a jerk. Eyes wide, she bolted. Yelling, "I'm coming!" in the general direction of the front door, Faith ran to the bathroom. Hastily straightening her clothes and running a brush through her hair, she swallowed half a capful of mouthwash, then sprinted for the door.

Heart pounding, Faith glanced into the dark recesses of the hallway where Spike stood, still guarding Christina's door.

"It'll be okay, pet," he said with more confidence than he felt.

Faith just nodded. Oh, she was going to be sick! Inhaling deeply, she told herself, _Courage_. Then the Slayer reached for the doorknob and finally pulled it open.

"There you are. I was beginning to wonder if you'd forgotten we were coming." The Englishman on the doorstep regarded her keenly, his hands stuck deep within the pockets of his tweed trousers. "Good morning, Faith," he added when she continued to stare at him, dumbstruck. "I believe you have a rogue Slayer you would like for us to take care of?"

When she still didn't reply, he sighed. "Satsu, Liz, Jennica, this is Faith Lehane, the Vampire Slayer. I don't believe you've met. Faith, the girls have come to help me deal with your problem."

This time she did respond. "Morning, Giles." It had taken her a moment to get over that first irrational impulse to shout "G-man!" and tackle-hug the old Watcher. "Come on in." She stepped back to let Giles and his troop of new Slayers inside the house. "Would you guys like some breakfast, or is this a strictly business call?" she joked nervously.

"I would like to speak with Christina alone first, but the girls are probably hungry, and I could do with a cup of tea afterwards. If you would go ahead and take me to Christina?"

Nodding, she led him around the corner and down the hall, hoping he wouldn't go ape when he saw who the current guard was.

"You're doing well, Faith," Giles said quietly. "I'm proud of you."

Suddenly there was this huge tight lump in her throat, and Faith was having difficulty swallowing. It meant a lot that Giles was proud of her. She'd always envied his father-figure relationship with Buffy. Since her stint in jail, the more she'd worked with him, the more she found herself liking the stuffy old Brit. Somewhere along the line, his approval had become surprisingly valuable to her. "Thanks," she croaked.

"Buffy sends her regards. She says she hopes you're well."

Swallowing became even more difficult. "R-r-really?"

"Indeed. Like I said, you're doing a good job. We're _both_ proud of you." And slipping past Spike into the bedroom cell, Giles left Faith alone to sink weakly against the wall, gabbling soundlessly as she tried to recover from that stunner.

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><p><strong>AN: Sorry for the delay. Reviews are greatly appreciated. :)**


	8. In the Dark

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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><p>The more time I spend in this twisted mortal world, the less I understand it. Wesley and Faith both promised to explain things to me, and in both cases, they have done their best, but I have yet to see any real evidence that human life is worthwhile. They are and have always been an insignificant yet annoying pustule on the surface of the world that is mine to rule. And I do not see that changing at any point in the future.<p>

Of course, none of the humans agree with me. Even the half-breeds – the vampires – say they see good in this squalid species. I do not understand this. What a word – good! I do not entirely understand this "good", but it seems the term frequently applied for the combined traits of honor, mediocre intelligence, determination, and loyalty to one's social group. In that case, the only specimens that I see "good" in are the ones that I share a residence with.

Another thing I have difficulty comprehending is human emotion. Their motivations are so very complex that it borders on the ridiculous. Perhaps they have evolved since the days when I ruled them – then they were driven simply by hunger, sex, and the need for supremacy. Supremacy over one another, of course. They never dared dream to aspire to supremacy over _me_. If they did, I simply crushed them like the insects they were.

Now, it seems, they are driven by the same basic urges, but they try to mask them by hampering themselves in a completely unnecessary morass of "moral" complications that they call ethics. Utterly ridiculous. And it is in this web of so-called ethics that my humans and half-breeds have been embroiled these last few weeks.

It began with a human whose brain had been overrun by the demon element that made her a Slayer. Or perhaps she was just mentally fragile to begin with. Etiher way, she was mad as some rabid animal. Cruelty to achieve an end or prove a point is frequently necessary. Cruetly for cruelty's sake is madness, especially when it interferes with some useful purpose. This Slayer was addicted to cruelty and hatred. She nearly killed my pets, and so I wished to get rid of her. Faith insisted we use Slayer resources to "rehabilitate" her. An old Englishman, three of the Slayer creatures, and a whole squad of thugs came to remove her to Scotland for this "rehab". A truly pointless idea. Once something has gone mad, all that can be done is to destroy it. They would be wise to put her down like a mad dog, but I doubt they will. Regretfully, they took Andrew with them. Pity. The overeager boy could be entertaining.

Since then, my remaining housemates have been worried and conflicted in the most irritating fashion. Spike misses Andrew, even if he will not admit it. He has taken to playing video games all day in a silent protest. Faith has been using her remedial human intelligence classes to avoid talking with anyone about the visit and what will happen to Christina. Angel grew jealous of the old man when he was here. I believe it was because he likes being important to Faith and did not want the old man to replace him.

Granted, none of these inferences are mine. They were suggested to me by the two young Slayers, the children who view me with at least a portion of the fear and awe that is my due. At first I hesitated to give credence to their impulsive conclusions, but after further study of my pets, I am forced to admit that they fit the data.

It is humiliating to be forced to look to these infants for emotional insights, but I can see few alternatives. In order to understand and properly care for my pets, I must know at least the rudiments of their emotional thought. But it is so difficult when I feel little emotion myself! I, I who ruled the earth and subjected all mankind to my rule, I am confounded by these ethics and these emotions. I do not sympathize, I cannot empathize, and no matter how hard I exert my considerable intellectual powers, I do not understand. I remain utterly in the dark.

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><p><strong>AN: Felt like tackling Illyria's POV this time 'round. As always, reviews are appreciated!**


	9. Snuggle Time

**Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to someone else. Anything that hints of crack probably belongs to me.**

**A/N: My apologies for the unpardonable delay. More explanation at the end of the chapter.**

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><p><em>Three months. <em>Linea surveyed the giant hamper of dirty laundry in the corner of her room. _Three months. Three months of Slaying most nights, lying to everyone except __Zoë__, running with all engines go, go, go! I haven't slept properly in ages, my face is constantly breaking out, and not one of my socks has a match! Except my tube socks. And it's hardly as if I can wear those anywhere. _

"Linea! Honey!" Her mother's voice sounded from outside the off-white bedroom door. "We're leaving in ten, okay?"

The ginger hurried to the door, only tripping once. Unless vampires were around, being a Slayer did nothing to curb her normal clumsiness. Unfortunately. Breathless, she opened the door, nearly whacking her mom in the face. Stepping backwards, Mrs. Parker slowly took in her daughter's unkempt appearance. One smoothly plucked brown eyebrow rose.

"Are you all right, darling?" she asked in concern.

Red hair frantically escaping her bobby pins, Linea knew she looked a mess in her gym shorts and ratty tank top. But jeez! Her mom didn't have to point it out. "Haha, yeah," she mumbled, rubbing awkwardly at the back of her neck. "Long day at school. Lots of homework, tests . . . I just crashed earlier."

The eyebrow crept ever so slightly higher. "Mmm. Well, love, Daddy and I are going out, and your sister's spending the night at Margie's. Are you planning on having friends over?"

"I hadn't really gotten that far." Homework, notecards, sleep, then Slaying. She _had_ to get something done before the ubiquitous Slaying.

"What about that nice boyfriend of yours?" her mother pressed. Although her tone was gentle, it set Linea's teeth on edge.

"We broke up two weeks ago," she ground out. Slaying. Again. Poor James. He thought she was cheating. She wasn't. But maybe he had a right to be mad. He wasn't her first priority, not by a long shot. Not even her fifth. And that wasn't really fair to him. Nor was the fact that she hung out every night with gorgeous vampires. Gorgeous guy vampires. Not that anything could ever happen there. The Buffy/Angel story was taught as a textbook example of what _not_ to do. And it wasn't as if James would have been a fan of the Slaying. Still, she _had_ liked him. Now drumline was awkward, and her mother was asking questions. Lovely.

"I'm sorry, darling. Who ended it?"

Luckily, at that moment her father called up from the bottom of the stairs. If they didn't leave now, they would miss their dinner reservation. Sighing, Mrs. Parker left her youngest daughter to the mercy of her own introspection.

"Good night, dear. We're going to catch a show with the Milligans later, so we won't be back until very late. Text us if you decide to go out. It _is_ Friday night, after all."

"Yes, Mom." Linea accepted her mother's hug with the reluctance that only teenagers can get away with. She watched out the window as her parents walked out to the car, her dad opening the door for his wife. Returning to her piles of laundry, the girl glared at them absent-mindedly. Another thing she had to do. Great. Zoë would be over later to pick her up before Slayage. She'd better get started on the cleaning and homework.

The dirty laundry found its way to the center of her bed along with a physics book, calculator, Rubik's cube, spiral notebooks, and half a dozen unfinished algebra assignments, Contemplating a copy of _The Iliad_, Linea added it to her pile.

_Even Achilles could stop fighting and be justified,_ she thought bitterly. _So why can't we Slayers?_

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><p>Spike tried not to let change worry him. You couldn't control other people. So he didn't get too upset when change happened. Unless someone he loved died. Then he went postal.<p>

He hadn't decided yet if he wanted to be upset this time. Angel had that distant look in his eyes constantly now. Blue oscillated between apathy, confusion, and killing every demon Faith let her get her hands on. Gunn was constantly off with Rona - not that Spike cared. He'd never really forgiven Gunn for being involved in Fred's death. As for Faith, the rogue Slayer had passed her G.E.D. test and recently gotten a job as a self-defense instructor at a nearby YMCA. She was also addicted to Zumba. So were the Slayerettes. If he had to listen to one more crappy Latin pop song, Spike was gonna hurl.

Speaking of the Slayerettes . . . it was a quarter to midnight, and here he was, slinking through an uptown graveyard to make sure they stayed out of trouble. Well, not all trouble. Just trouble too big for them to handle on their own. Which meant pretty big trouble, actually. The vampire was mildly surprised by Linea and Zoë 's ability to deal with bad guys while maintaining a constant stream of girl talk. Demon jumps out from behind a tree? No problem, just tackle him to the ground, interrogate, then release or eliminate as dictated by the situation and return to chatting. Vamp rises from a grave? Spin 'round, stake him, brush dust off clothes, gossip. Rinse, repeat. Both impressed by their synergy and discomfited by the efficient, impersonal way with which they disposed of monsters, Spike followed the girls at a distance. It wouldn't do to have their Slaying instincts turned on him.

Although out of earshot, he could still watch them by the light of a few lampposts scattered throughout the cemetery. Zoë had just finished dusting a male vamp who could have been the guitarist of a punk rock band with his green hair, glinting silver body jewelry, and black pants dangling chains. The slight brunette rose to her feet, swaying slightly. Probably concerned, the ginger moved closer to her. Spike filled in their conversation with his imagination.

"Oh no, Z! Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine. Chill, why don't you?" Zoë moved back, rubbing her palms on the fabric of her jeans. "Ow! I broke a nail!"

Linea took one of Zoë's hands in her own. "Not again! How tragic!" She examined the hand carefully. "You'll have to get another manicure. Stat."

The cheerleader tossed her head back, trying vainly to keep from crying. "I know," she sniffled. "That's the third one this month . . . If only Spike were here to kiss it and make it better."

Nodding furiously, the other girl giggled. "If only . . ."

"Spike! Spike! Hello! Earth to vampire!"

Shaking his head, Spike realized both girls had approached and were looking at him oddly.

"You okay?" asked Zoë. Her palms were red and scraped, but all of the nails appeared intact. "Zone out there for a minute, buddy?"

"Stalking us for Faith again?" Linea's voice was less than impressed. "Where is she, anyway?"

"Movies. With Peaches, Gunn, and Rona."

"Double date?" Zoë squealed excitedly, eyes wide and shiny at the thought of her favorite Slayer/vamp couple finally getting together.

"Figures," snorted Linea at the same moment.

Spike reached into his duster pocket for a cigarette and came up empty. Bloody hell. He hated being caught out by the little Slayers, hated even more their questions about Faith in judgment-laden tones. Sure, the Slayer had been a bit anti-patrol lately, but she'd taken that Tzarinki demon down single-handedly two days ago. Not to mention she tried to get Rona's Slayers to include her girls on the big stuff. But most of all, he hated when he ran out of cigarettes and forgot to steal Faith's.

"Nah. 'S not a double date. Blue went, too."

"And you go stuck on babysitting duty?"

If he hadn't known better, Spike would have been very tempted to ask Linea if it was "that time of the month again," she was that out of sorts and cruising for a fight. However, he preferred to keep his internal organs in place, and so kept silent.

"Did you forget to do your dishes again?" Zoë teased to ease the awkward tension.

"Something like that," the vampire smirked, grateful for the out.

"Well, we've patrolled all the cemeteries that we're supposed to. How about we go see a movie?"

"Too late. All the showings would have already started."

"Okay . . ."

"You all right, ginger?"

Linea forced a brittle smile. "Bit tired, Spike."

"We could watch a movie at the Halfway House."

"And have my parents come home wondering where I am? No thanks, Z."

Hmm. She didn't usually snap at the other mini-Slayer. The two were as thick as two ridiculously giggly thieves. Something was up. Spike heaved a mental sigh. He could ignore this or do something about it. He really should just let it go . . . but he was Spike, and she was a moderately attractive upset female. Crap. So he closed the distance between himself and the redhead, lifted her chin gently with one callused hand, and wheedled, "Tell me what's wrong?"

Linea jerked her head free, eyes glinting with fury and exhaustion and defeat all at once. "I don't sleep anymore, my boyfriend broke up with me, my parents are asking me questions about it, and all I ever do is kill like a bloody machine. I don't think I can handle much more of this. I'm freaking sick of Slaying."

There it was. Finally out in the open. "Zoë?"

"I feel the same. Well, maybe not quite so strongly, but yeah . . . it sounds familiar." The cheerleader shuffled her feet awkwardly.

"I'm sorry, pe–"

"Don't. Please. Can we just be done with this tonight? Can we pretend, if only for a little bit, that we aren't blood-soaked automaton murderers? Please?" Her bleak voice broke on the last word, and a single angry tear slid down Linea's cheek.

That did it. Never one to ignore a crying girl, the vampire opened his arms and gathered both Slayers into an awkward group hug. "Okay, luvs. Okay. We'll pretend. I just have one question."

"What is it?" Linea croaked.

Spike drew back a tad so that they could see his face. He winked. "My place or yours?"

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><p>When the Parkers got home later that evening, they went straight to bed without checking on their younger daughter. A lucky thing, too, for she would have been in serious trouble if they had found her and her best friend crammed onto her bed, snuggled up against an edgy-looking blond man as the credits for <em>A Walk to Remember<em> rolled across her TV. The vampire heard them come in and smirked as he pulled the two pajama-clad girls closer. When he left in a few hours, Operation Avoid the Parents would be a success.

Angel would never have approved of what he was doing, and Drusilla would have accused him of going soft, but Spike didn't mind a cuddle here and there. The girls needed a good cry and an "It gets better moment." To be honest, he wasn't sure it would get better. Slaying was brutal. But with so many Slayers, maybe these two could quit, if Buffy allowed it. The world didn't need any more broken girls. So he dropped hints about early retirement and sat through a silly movie and served as a pillow. Not all that different from comforting the Nibblet, really.

Neck starting to cramp, he scooted down further in the bed, careful not to wake the Slayerettes. Zoë mumbled in her sleep and rolled over so that her head moved to his shoulder. Linea simply slept on, one of her thin arms curled beneath her, the other draped across his chest.

"It'll be all right," he murmured softly, glancing at the pair of them, very much aware of the emptiness of his words. "You'll see. It'll all work out okay in the end." Spike hoped he wouldn't be proved a liar. "I promise."

The vampire closed his eyes, too weary to worry about nightmares of Angel's frustration when he didn't answer his phone or how embarrassed the girls were going to be in the morning. Enveloped in warmth, he smiled and slept.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: And now for the real apology. It has been over a year since I updated this story, and I am so sorry. I can blame a crazy few semesters or Romania or the MCAT, but the truth is that I haven't been writing. Good news, I have an outline, and I am going to do my best to update every other week at least until I finish this tale. Thanks for sticking with me.<br>****~AiH**


	10. The Council of Faith

**Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with BtVS or AtS. I just like to commandeer characters and mess with them.**

**A/N: Once again, apologies for the lateness of this update! Good news, though - I have already started work on the next chapter. So hopefully it should be posted by the end of next week, if not sooner. Brief recap: Linea and Zoë were frustrated with their balancing act of Slaying, school, and life. They aired their grievances to Spike, who endeavored to comfort them. We rejoin our Slayerettes and favorite blond vampire a few hours later.**

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><p>Zoë was hot. Not sexy cheerleader hot, in a short skirt with toned legs; nor yet beach hot, baking under an unforgiving sun. She was sticky sweaty hot, roasting under heavy covers, her ankles wrapped around something cylindrical and encased in rough fabric. Half asleep and muddle-headed, she vaguely noticed an arm-type-thing beneath her head and the soothing feeling of fingers running through her hair. As this last sensation fully registered, Zoë instantly became wide awake. Where was she? What was going on?<p>

The events of the night before trickled back to her slowly. Pity party. Whine fest. Spike. Oh, dear! She was . . . cuddling with Spike? What had felt okay the night before now seemed totally inappropriate. But how could she play this off without seeming like a freak? Sitting upright quickly would probably result in her falling off the bed and screaming as she did so. And what if Linea's parents were home now? They were so screwed. Impossibly, indubitably, inevitably screwed.

To make matters worse, Spike's fingers had withdrawn from her hair. Besides missing the comforting feeling, she was pretty sure this meant he knew she was awake. Her breathing must have given her away. Stupid vampire senses. Zoë steeled herself and opened her eyes.

"Morning," she croaked awkwardly, looking nowhere but the ceiling.

A rakish blond face loomed over her. "Mornin'," the vampire chuckled throatily. "Mind if I take my arm and leg back? I might be needing 'em to fight off Peaches later."

Mortified, the teenage girl immediately untangled her ankles from Spike's right one and sat up so he could move his arm. Glancing about, she saw Linea curled up on the vampire's other side, her ginger head pillowed on his chest. Spike was also playing with her curls.

"Have a hair fetish, do you?" Zoë tried to joke, and then the second half of what he'd said sunk in. "Why are you going to be fighting off Angel?"

Grinning, the vampire slid a hand into his jeans pocket and dug out a black cell phone. "He an' Faith have rung us about a thousand times. I called 'em back a few minutes ago. Apparently we've all got to have some big powwow kumbaya-ya thing tonight, and 'discuss stuff.'" He crooked his fingers into sarcastic air quotes.

"Tonight?"

Spike snorted. "Look 'round you, kitten."

"Oh." Sunlight already streamed around the edges of the closed blinds at Linea's window, leaving a striped pattern on the bedroom floor. "What are you going to do?"

"Hide out here till sunset. Don't worry, pet; we'll figure it out."

"And if Linea's parents come in here?"

"No problem. She's got a closet, yeah?"

Zoë sighed deeply. "So let me see if I have this right. Basically, we're royally screwed."

"'Bout sums it up."

She slumped back onto the pillows, running a hand over her eyes. "Perfect."

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><p>"I used to like the twilight, you know."<p>

Illyria turned from her place at the living room's large bay window to find Angel standing behind her. She had heard him approach, of course. The former god-king could always identify her humans and half-humans by their distinctive treads. Knowing that random, unrequested conversations seemed to be the normal mode of communication for her pets, she inclined her head and offered a half-smile.

"Used to?" she probed, wondering what it would take for him to stop wearing dark colors. It was depressing. Did it signal inner turmoil? Not for the last time, she missed Wesley. He was more straightforward and less dramatic than these vampires.

Angel returned the smile. "When I was a lad, dark meant my father would soon be asleep and I could sneak out." He noticed the casualness of her clothes today – faded jeans, a blue t-shirt, a heather gray zippered hoody that Andrew had left in the coat closet, and fuzzy green socks, a gag gift from Spike. Her blue and brown hair was gathered into a sleek low ponytail. It was a very normal, relaxed look – Zoë, Linea, and Faith all dressed similarly – but it was very unusual for Illyria. "Are you all right?"

His once-over had not escaped her keen powers of observation. "Angel." While still firm, her voice was softer than was her wont. "I am fine. I have recently come to realize that I am not entirely myself." Illyria hesitated. This next part would hurt him, but he had been the one to instigate this tête-à-tête, and he would need to know eventually. "The remnants of Fred in this body – the imprints, the memories, the whispers of her soul – are such that I will forever be part me and part her." She saw pain in the tight lines of his face and pressed on. "Angel. She was a unique human. The echoes that remain assure me of her love for you, for Spike, for Charles Gunn. Fred can teach me what humanity means better than Wesley or Faith, although both of them have tried. And perhaps she can live on in me. Would that be so awful?"

"No." The vampire did not meet her eyes, but he extended his arms and enfolded her in an embrace. It was the first one Illyria had experienced in a long, long while. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to lean into him. This didn't make her weak, she reasoned. Not when she could still punch a hole through him with her magic.

"Thank you," she said as the hug reinforced her determination to carry out her new project.

They stood there a moment longer, listening to the sounds of cars in the drive. The back door opened and closed, and Faith greeted the newcomers with cheerful innuendo. A whole herd of feet tramped down to the basement. Illyria extricated herself from the hug with another half-smile.

"Meeting time." Angel faked a cheesy grin. "This is going to be interesting."

Oh, yes. Illyria was counting on it.

The pair headed downstairs to find the others waiting in the large common room that Linea had dubbed "the lair." The Slayerette in question sat with Zoë on a tan leather couch, pointedly not looking at the twin piece of furniture where Spike was updating Faith on the events of the last twenty-four hours. Smirking, the older Slayer scribbled notes on a legal pad in her lap. Angel and Illyria exchanged glances at this before taking their own seats: he in a bean bag chair near the two teenagers and she on an ottoman beside Gunn's recliner. Now that all the halfway house denizens were present, the meeting could begin.

Faith listened to Spike's story for another minute or so, observing the others with her peripheral vision. Gunn looked uptight; his back was nowhere near touching that of his recliner. Also, he kept fidgeting with his hands. Zoë and Linea were obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable. Neither could look her in the eye. Good. They would be getting crap about their little slumber party with Spike for the next ten apocalypses. As usual, Blue was unreadable. She probably had something up her sleeve . . . again. Thankfully Angel didn't appear to be hiding any secrets. The Slayer glanced down at her list. Okay, time to start.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, she began, "Evening, everyone. Thanks for coming to this, er, council thing." Linea mouthed "_The Council of Faith"_ to Zoë, and the two burst into silent giggles. Faith ignored them. "Anyway, several issues have come to my attention lately, and I thought we should all talk them through. Here's what I've got: a better Slaying schedule, jobs, a new cleaning roster, and future plans for the house. Anybody have something to add?"

A chorus of negatives answered her. Illyria simply smiled inscrutably. Gunn, however, twisted in his chair.

"Actually, yeah. Rona and I have been talking a lot lately. We're getting serious, and we'd like to move in together. Maybe someday get married."

Zoë and Linea perked up at the mention of marriage and instantly pulled out their phones to start texting one another.

Noticing their enthusiasm, Gunn grinned. "So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Monsters don't make us money. And even if Rona and I don't work out, someday I do want to get married and have a family. But I don't want to do it on the government's dole, or the Council's, and I don't want what happened to Doyle, Wes, or Cordy to happen to my wife or kids."

_He's quitting the biz!_ Linea speed-texted to Zoë.

_I know. What do you think that means for us?_

"What will you do?" Angel wanted to know.

The other man shrugged. "I'm a pretty good mechanic."

"Car thief," coughed Spike.

"I'm pretending I didn't hear that. Anyway, there are a few good technical schools that offer mechanic training in Cleveland. Thought I'd apply, get some more training, a certification, maybe, and then get a job. Maybe someday move back to California, open up my own place. In the meantime, I could still help out with all the big apocalypses. Even go on patrol if you guys are really shorthanded. What do you guys think?" His eyes sought out Angel, the friend who had brought him into this crazy world of Slayers in the first place. Sure, so his turf war with the vampires hadn't been caused by Angel, per se, but the fact that he'd stuck around the years of insanity . . . yup, that one was definitely Angel's fault.

"It sounds like you've thought everything through." The dark-haired vampire smiled wistfully, unable to completely quash his jealously of Gunn's ability to pursue a normal life. "Best of luck, old friend."

"Thank you."

"We'll miss you, big guy."

"Aw, Faith. I hate to leave you with the two fanged toddlers –"

"Oi!"

"Watch it!"

"But you're getting married," Zoë finished for him dreamily.

"Right she is! Let's have a few beers to celebrate!"

"No, Spike. We need to do this sober," Faith reprimanded.

"Fine. Gimme the damn list." Spike reached over and pilfered the legal pad. "Okay. Item one, new Slayer schedule. Easy. You do Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday. The girls'll do Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Everyone does Saturday, and you trade schedules every week. All Slayers are accompanied on patrols by at least one vampire, ex-god, or car thief."

"Mechanic," Gunn protested half-heartedly.

"Whatever. All agreed on my excellent planning? Good. Moving on to jobs. Gunn's figured out he wants to be a mechanic. Faith teaches self-defense."

"And Zumba," the Slayer in question added with a grin. "Just got certified this afternoon."

Spike wrinkled his face in contempt. Now the Latin dance music obsession was _never_ going to end. Even Angel sighed dourly. Any and all derisive remarks were buried under squeals of enthusiam from the Slayerettes. This was the best thing to happen in ages! Now they could practice their salsa moves while Slaying.

To shut them up, and only half sarcastically, the blond vampire declared, "Well, I'm going to start a rock band."

The other inhabitants of the room raised their eyebrows.

"What? I could do it! Or write poetry. I could be the next Shakespeare, Keats, or Silverstein."

Angel was starting to have some very unpleasant William the Bloody Awful Poet flashbacks. With a shiver, her changed the subject. "Cleaning roster. Go."

"Make a pie chart with chores and everybody's names on it." Zoë sighed. "Rotate the chart every week. I can do it. Got to make a new one for my brothers anyway. About the whole job thing . . . Linea and I want to go to college. We want graduate degrees, professions, families, health insurance, 401k's – the whole enchilada. We're tired of lying to our parents, siblings, and friends. We want normal teenage relationships, even if that is a contradiction in terms. Lin's last guy broke up with her cuz she was so busy Slaying that he thought she was cheating."

Gunn, Spike, and Faith all winced for Linea. "Ouch," muttered more than one person under their breath.

Zoë forged ahead. She had to, or she would never get this out. "I know we're only juniors, but the SAT and ACT are coming up, and we need to be ready. I love Slaying. The adrenalin rush, hanging out with you guys, being able to protect the people I love from the dangers they don't even know exist . . . but it isn't enough for me. And at the same time, it's too much. I want to be a physical therapist someday. I want to heal people, not just kill things."

Flushing slightly, Linea picked up where her best friend left off. "And I want to be a physicist. Look, Faith, we don't mean to diss you or Buffy or what ya'll have done, but neither of you graduated from college. You dropped out of high school. There are so many Slayers now. Can't we chase our dreams and fulfill our calling? Can you please talk to Buffy or Giles – someone in charge – and find out for us?"

"Sure," Faith replied smoothly, her face impassive. Thanks to Spike, she had seen this coming. "I'll talk to someone. In the meantime, the Victorian vocab vampire twins can help you with your exams. We can work the Slaying around your school. I'm screwed up, but there's no reason for you to be."

Something had been damaged here, and Linea wasn't sure how to fix it. The older woman's facade was too brittle and tired. "Faith, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. Zoë and I, we're screwed up already. And if we get through this Slayer thing any less screwed up than you, it's_ because_ we have you. You're our Watcher and Big Sister and hopefully soon, our Zumba instructor. I know I've done a lot of griping lately, but navigating through this Bermuda triangle of high school, teenagerdom, and Slayerness would be impossibly hard without you."

"Group hug later?" suggested Zoë timidly.

Faith laughed. "You turning into Angel now? And speaking of hugs, didn't you get plenty of those last night?" she inquired archly.

The Slayerettes both turned beet red and stopped talking. Spike looked nauseatingly pleased with himself.

"All right, ladies, Pouff, and Gunn. Serious stuff's over. Super Smash time!"

"Oooh! Can we order a pizza?"

"Please! With pineapple?"

"Wait." Illyria rose from her ottoman and held up a hand commandingly. "I have something that I wish to discuss." Everyone fell silent and stared up at the fierce god-king. She was never one for sharing, so it must be important. Illyria's piercing eyes swept the room, ensuring her audience was properly cowed and would not interrupt. Satisfied, she continued, "I have been looking into removing that inane Gypsy curse and attaching Angelus's soul permanently to his body. And I believe I can do it."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Next up: further discussion of Illyria's plans. Faith makes a phone call. There's a nasty encounter with a slime demon. Further in the future: Angel as an SAT tutor, Spike gives dating advice, someone tries to bring a friend back from the dead, and Zoë's favorite couple goes on a date. At long last, this story has direction again! Let me know what you thought of this chapter, what you'd like to see happen at the Halfway House, or any BtvS/AtS characters you'd like to "guest star." Thanks for sticking with me and for taking the time to read!**

**AiH**


	11. Phone-a-Friend

**A/N: Sorry about the delay in posting this. I've been interviewing at medical schools this past week, and life has gotten a bit intense. **

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><p>Jaws hit the floor at Illyria's announcement. There was a moment's silence, and then she was engulfed in a wave of one-word questions and inquisitive onomatopoeias. The god-king briefly allowed her pets' concern and curiosity to wash over her. She stood and gestured for quiet.<p>

"Peace. I shall continue my research and experiments until I have an exact procedure. At that point, we shall review it together and then perform the permanent ensoulment."

"Good luck," whispered Gunn. The others were all too busy impersonating fish to speak.

Wry amusement flashed across Illyria's face. "Thank you, Charles, but I doubt I shall need it. I am a god. I make my own luck." She dismissed the group with a cursory glance and swept from the room.

They listened to her light tread ascending the stairs. For another long moment, no one spoke. And then everyone started talking at once.

"A soul?" Angel gasped as if he didn't have one already.

"A permanent soul, at that, Peaches. Bet Angelus ain't too happy 'bout that."

"Permanent." The dark-haired vampire was still in shock. He sat quietly as the Slayerettes bombarded Faith, Spike, and Gunn with endless questions about magic, vampires, and those fragile things called souls. Angel listened, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, and slowly slunk deeper and deeper into a proper brood. A permanent soul? Non-removable? It was like the promised Shansu, but better, perhaps. He could still battle evil and protect others with his vampire strength and speed. But without the threat of losing his soul to that moment of "perfect happiness", what would happen to his atonement complex? Angel was guilty. He was _bad_. And he needed to dwell on it for the rest of his un-life. Maybe he should say no to Illyria's plan, just as he had refused the ring of Amara. Yes. Perhaps he should. After all, no one who had done what he had done deserved to be happy.

Angel was startled from his reverie by a pillow that smacked him in the face.

"Oi! Forehead! Stop getting all thunderous over there. Cheer up, ya moron. Now you can boink whoever you like."

Someday Angel was finally going to put a muzzle on Spike. It was only a matter of time.

* * *

><p>"Good morning?" The voice was low, gruff, and husky with sleep. It sounded as though she had just woken up a very refined smoker.<p>

"Giles?" Faith attempted to keep her voice level, neither excited nor apprehensive. She liked to pretend that it worked. "Having a bit of a lie-in, are you?"

She could hear his exasperated-with-Faith smile from all the way across the Atlantic. "Crisis last night. Some out-of-control witch tried to turn the Thames into a water cyclone and destroy Buckingham Palace. Thankfully, Willow and Buffy were able to stop her in time."

The gang was back in London? This was new. Faith hazarded, "I though you were all in Scotland?"

"I needed to visit the archives of the British Museum."

"You got homesick, didn't you? The Scoobies aren't nearly nerdy enough to be your proper type of people. Not since Willow went all lesbian-Wicca-yay and stopped living in the library, anyway. Did you miss your kind, Giles? Is it nice to be back with your own species?" The Slayer strode into her bedroom and shut the door gently. Everyone else was either lost in video game land or passed out on the couches downstairs. Except for Illyria, who was off somewhere doing whatever it was she did in her spare time.

"Faith . . . I'll have you know that I used to be a very well respected curator at the British Museum. They've asked me back, actually."

"Woot!" Faith flung herself across the queen-sized bed and dangled her ankles off the edge. "Congrats, G-man! You gonna take it, or are you holding out for more money?"

Giles sighed on the other end of the line. "Isn't it three in the morning in Ohio? You should be in bed-"

"Down, boy."

"Asleep," he finished forcefully. "Is something on your mind?"

"Nope," she lied easily. They could get down to business later. She was having _way_ too much fun teasing her old Watcher right now. "I was just missing my favorite respectable English gentleman, and I thought I'd brighten up your dull, drizzly, dreary Sunday morning with a lovely chat."

"Faith – "

She ignored his interjection. It was one of her best party tricks. "Rupert. Tell me more about this museum thing. Seriously."

Giles found himself smiling again. Faith's persistent lack of respect for authority came coupled with many traits he actually enjoyed. Since the destruction of Sunnydale, he had grown much closer to the brunette Slayer. He appreciated her dedication to the job, her irreverent humor, and her awareness of the fine lines that surrounded them. She did what needed to be done without compromising herself or her honor, and on the rare occasion when a compromise had to be made, it was always with an ironic smile. Faith did not participate in self-deception. She knew the morality of her choices.

Most of all, Giles was grateful that she treated him as more than a repository for Slaying information and seemed genuinely interested in his life outside the Watchers' Council. She had added him to her small collection of friends and was determined to make sure he knew it.

"They want me to come back and work in their Medieval department. It would be a better job than the one I had before I came to America. Medieval artifacts are some of my favorites, actually. They are generally in better condition than the more ancient pieces, but there still lingers so much mystery about them."

"Plus you can get your rocks off trying to read all those illuminated manuscripts without them falling apart."

"Something like that, yes."

"Were your family Watchers back in the Middle Ages?"

Springs creaked as Giles shifted positions. Faith grinned. A lazy morning without having to prevent an apocalypse, defeat a Big Bad, or comfort an exceptionally moody Slayer would be good for him. Now if only she could keep the conversation on him and off of the halfway house, they'd be five by five.

"I am not sure," he admitted. "I believe the Giles family has been deeply interested in and frequently associated with the occult for many, many generations, but I do not have records of our medieval pursuits. The surname Giles is not listed in the Watcher annals of those times, but that is by no means a conclusive proof that none of my medieval ancestors had dealings with the Slayer."

"Where does the last name Giles come from, anyway?" Faith prompted, rolling over onto her back to stare up at the funky texture of her ceiling. "Popcorn," Linea had called it – or something like that. The Slayer closed her eyes, the better to soak in his posh, accented tones.

"It is a derivative of the ancient Greek 'Aegidius,' a word which literally means 'a wearer of the goatskin' and refers to a person who does good works or a holy man. The original St. Giles, patron saint of beggars and cripples, left Greece and became a hermit in France. His Greek name Aegidius eventually was turned into Giles – it being a much more natural sounding word in French. The Normans brought the surname to the British Isles – an early form of it appears in the Domesday Book, in fact. Since then, I believe, it has spread to many European countries as well as the colonies."

"Goatskin, hermits, cripples, and beggars? Sexy."

"The shield of Zeus – and sometimes Athena – was named the aegis because it was made out of goatskin."

"So don't mock the goats?"

Giles laughed. "Indeed. At least not when in ancient Greece."

"Duly noted. Sorry, I'm afraid I don't know too much about Greece or Greek mythology or any of that stuff, really."

"Well, there are a wide variety of books available on the subject. Many of them are much less 'dry' than the books you use for Slayer research. I am sure the library in Cleveland would have something interesting and to your tastes."

"Meaning little books with lots of pictures? Ha ha, Giles. Ha ha. Seriously though, me in a library? Did someone feed you magic tea and crumpets last night?"

"Faith . . . "

"My bad, G-man. Come on, tell me a myth?"

She heard a rustling of paper, the click of a lighter, and then a long, slow exhale. Great. Giles was having a smoke. Her insides lurched with jealousy. She had lost a game of poker to Spike three days before and, as a consequence, had to go two weeks without tobacco or French kiss Angel in front of Rona's Slayers. Faith strongly suspected Zoë's scheming mind behind this and chose to temporarily stop smoking.

"I thought you quit?" she asked, mouth dry.

There was no answer for half a minute as he took another drag on his cigarette.

Strangely, Faith was starting to get nervous now. "Giles? Is everything okay? You're smoking on a Sunday morning."

"I am preparing myself for whatever bomb it is you are about to drop on me," he replied. "Also, it has been a rather hectic week, and I have not been able to find time for myself until now. Buffy, Willow, and the other girls are all still asleep, and I am taking advantage of the quiet."

"B doesn't like it when you smoke," Faith surmised. "Don't forget to open the window after."

"Quite." Giles exhaled again. "Now what is troubling you?"

Best to get it over with quick – like ripping off a band-aid. "Illyria wants to restore Angel's soul. Permanently. Like Spike's."

"Does she know how to do such a thing?" Giles frowned thoughtfully. "That would be a rather difficult spell to cast."

Faith shrugged. "She used to be an Old One, remember? Before some idiot stuck her in Fred's body. Now she's more human, less demon, but she still can work some powerful mojo. Don't tell Red, but I think Blue might be even better than she is – when she isn't too busy killing _lesser_ demons for fun. If anyone can restore Angel's soul properly, Illyria probably can."

"Then why are you worried? Are you afraid the spell will fail and Angelus will return? You were able to help re-ensoul him last time."

"Yeah, but I almost died – I think I actually wanted to die at some point in there. And I had Wesley then. We never really got a chance to be friends, but that was when we finally worked stuff out until it was okay between us . . . when we were finally five by five. It's not _fair_, Giles," she added angrily.

"Mmm?" He coughed, choking slightly on the cigarette smoke.

"Why did Wes have to die? He was . . . He was . . ." But Faith could not articulate her feelings well – hell, she'd never been able to do that – and she honestly wasn't sure how much she wanted to discuss Wesley with Giles. There was an ocean full of uncomfortable memories down that road. So she changed the subject. "Can a Slayer retire?"

Giles was still coughing. "Er, what?"

"Jeez. G-man, drink some water. Anyway, Slayers. Can they retire?"

"Are you asking for yourself or for someone else?"

"My girls – Linea and Zoë – have been talking about SATs and college. I don't think they want to go the Buffy route. Thankfully, it doesn't look as if they'll be going my route. And . . ." she hesitated in a Faith way that always let Giles know there was more to come if he waited patiently enough.

"And?" he encouraged gently.

"And I've got my GED, and I'm actually working two jobs now – or will be next week – and maybe I'd like to try community college or something. I want to understand why books make Linea and Angel and sometimes even Spike light up like it's Christmas. I want to not come across as white trash."

"I highly recommend furthering your education, but allow me to ask you a question. Do you desire to cease being a Slayer? Do your girls?"

"I dunno about them, G. But me . . . When I was called, I was in a real bad place, and my future was not pretty. Slaying gave me something to do that wasn't dwelling on how eff'ed up my life was. Somewhere in there, though, I stopped paying attention to me. I lost track of myself, of who I was, and I ended up even more eff'ed up than before. Being a Slayer – good, bad, psycho, comatose, remorseful, whatever – it took over my life. I never had a shot of finding out who 'Faith' was. It was either Slaying, death, or both. It wasn't until I landed my butt in jail that I started thinking. And maybe . . . maybe I want some options. Maybe I want a second chance . . . a chance to actually be Faith, not just B's replacement Slayer."

Giles absorbed this in silence, watching ash fall from his cigarette onto the brown glass coaster atop his nightstand. His eyes traced its path through the air, and he gathered his thoughts. "I see," he said at length. "Here are a few things you may want to consider . . ."

They continued talking for nearly another hour. When Faith's yawning began to dominate the conversation, Giles bid her a firm goodnight. He could hear someone stirring in the living room of his London flat, and he needed to go play a proper host – or it would take him _weeks_ to sort out the mess the Slayers left in his kitchen.

"Night, Giles," Faith yawned again. "If you don't go back to your museum, come home, okay? I miss you."

Touched, he replied, "And I, you. If this post at the British Museum doesn't come through, I shall keep your request under advisement. Now get some sleep."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n." Only half conscious, she clicked the 'end' button on the phone and was conked out by the time her hand hit the duvet.

* * *

><p>Faith awoke to sunshine and silence. A glance at the clock on the wall showed it to be two o'clock in the afternoon. Groaning, she pulled a pillow over her head and attempted to return to her dreams. They had been exciting – that much she remembered – featuring a handsome, swarthy English pirate and a naval battle against a Spanish galleon. Try as she might, the swashbuckling outlaw and his dangerous smile would not reappear. Grumpy, she abandoned the cause and left her warm nest.<p>

The house was quiet and empty, the usual state of affairs on a Sunday afternoon. Faith padded softly to the kitchen. The fridge was a horrid mess, but amidst the half-empty pitchers of blood, moldy cheese, and stale bread, she managed to find a gallon of milk that hadn't expired yet. Grabbing a bowl and a box of Cheerios, she settled down at the kitchen table. Breakfast, a shower, and then she was going to clean the house. World War Three. Faith versus the dirt invasion. It was going to be epic.

For once, she was true to her grand designs. By the time her roommates ventured forth from their own rooms, the kitchen, bathrooms, living room, hallways, and spare bedroom had all faced the violent wrath of Faith's vacuum, mop, duster, and industrial-sized box of Clorox wipes. The fridge had been emptied of all questionable items, and the myriad containers of blood consolidated by blood type. Faith honestly didn't give a flip if Spike and Angel had to drink after each other. It wasn't as if they could give each other mono . . . although that would be a huge laugh.

All the trash bags had gone out to the dumpster, and new liners were put in their places. Satisfied that the bacteria had been beaten back into submission, Faith set to cooking. It was a new skill she was trying to develop. So far, as long as she stuck to simple things, it all worked out okay. Humming under her breath, she browned a pound of ground beef and minced onions and garlic cloves.

Spike wandered in first, sniffing appreciatively. "In a house-wifely mood tonight, ducks? What time's dinner?"

The Slayer glanced up from stirring her pot of spaghetti sauce with a grin. "I can smell you from over here, Spike. No dinner until you take a shower and clean your room. That goes for you, too, Angel," she added as the older vampire entered behind his peroxide pet peeve. "Vacuum and stuff's in the hall closet. And if either one of you leaves hair gel gunk to fossilize on the bathroom counter again, there'll be a trip to sunburn land courtesy of me. Got it?"

"Your wish is our command." Angel swept an imaginary hat off his head and bowed with a series of excessive flourishes.

"What he said," Spike echoed, without the flourishes.

"Then dinner's in half an hour. You'd better hurry."

Faith smirked to herself as they vanished down the hallway. The sauce was simmering, the prepackaged cookie dough was in the oven, and she had thirty more minutes of peace and quiet all to herself. Just then, the back door slammed open, and Illyria poked her head into the kitchen.

"Sizeable nest of demons living near University Circle," she said matter-of-factly. "Apparently there's some strange animal flu going around the city, and the hospital morgue has been very full lately. The demons have been breaking in at night and stealing corpses. The flu's been most prevalent among the homeless, so there hasn't been any uproar about missing corpses yet."

"Grave-robbing demons?" Faith pulled a face.

"Worse. Corpse-eating demons. Speaking of eating, when will this be ready?" she motioned towards the stove.

"We have time?"

Illyria plopped down in a chair and shrugged. "The demons eat decomposing bodies. They won't care what time we show up to massacre them."

"Great . . ." The Slayer's pipe dream of dusting some easy vamps in the park and then watching a movie started to fade. "At least we can still eat dinner." But somehow, she fancied she'd lost her appetite.

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><p><strong>AN: Originally, this chapter was going to include a lot more action. And then Faith and Giles started talking and wouldn't shut up. Coming up next, our heroes battle demons, Illyria does some experimenting, and Angel plans SAT strategies. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.  
>AiH<strong>


	12. The UberMaggots from Hell

**Disclaimer: Whedon owns it. Not me.  
><strong>

****Chuck - Thanks for taking the time to review! I revamped the story summary. Let me know what you think of it.****

**A/N: My apologies for the delay. I blame it on fourteen medical school interviews in two months, a bad case of bronchitis, and biochemistry. Last chapter, Faith was looking forward to a night in when Illyria brought news of a new demon infestation. On with the story!  
><strong>

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><p>"Corpse-devouring demon? You aren't serious."<p>

"Afraid so," Faith sighed, ladling a hefty spoonful of spaghetti sauce onto Spike's plate

"Thanks, poppet."

Angel glanced up from setting the kitchen table. "Spike . . . for the _last_ time, you're not a pirate."

The younger vampire stuck his tongue out and stomped over to the fridge to pull out a pitcher of O-positive. He poured two large glasses full while Faith and Illyria watched, unfazed.

Conversation was limited throughout dinner. Even though Illyria had promised that hunting down these particular demons could wait, they all felt a sense of urgency. Whether referred to as Slaying, establishing justice, kicking butt, or exterminating vermin, fighting demons was what gave their lives purpose, for good or for ill. Once the food was devoured and the dishes all washed, Spike and Angel headed downstairs to collect weapons. Faith pulled out her laptop to do a bit of Googling. She quickly gave up when her only search results were a Japanese cat demon and some sloth demon thing from Dragon Age. Apparently, the internet was not always a useful resource.

Illyria disappeared to her bedroom and returning clad in her dark brown armor. She gestured for Faith to go change. "I am familiar with these creatures. I shall explain how to defeat them on our way to the hospital. Those clothes are not suitable. You need to have your arms covered to the wrist – unless you desire the stench of these creatures to cling to your skin for the next fortnight."

Grateful for the advice, Faith hurried to switch into her oldest jeans, a ratty long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of seriously worn out boots. She put a baseball cap on over her ponytail. Demons usually meant beheading, but the Slayer went ahead and tucked a couple of stakes into her boots and the inside pocket of an ancient green Letterman jacket someone had left at the house. Thankfully, she had taken the time during her giant cleaning spree to sharpen and polish her broadsword. Faith belted the weapon at her hip. It kind of threw off the whole sports fan coed vibe she had going on, but whatever. No one would notice the sword at her side once they saw the Bluebird's leather getup.

She met the others in the garage, where they piled into an old Dodge. Giles claimed he had chosen it specifically for how unremarkable it was. After all, beater cars were fairly common in Cleveland. No one actually believed him, and the vampires frequently whined about how awful the Dodge was. There were no such complaints tonight. Angel slid behind the wheel, Illyria acting as navigator in shotgun. The swords all shared the backseat with Faith and Spike.

"Tell us more about these demons, pet?" Spike requested, flashing Illyria a Cheshire grin in the rear view mirror.

The former god-king acquiesced. Very early that morning (or very late the night before), she had been searching for new sources of fledgling vampires for her ensoulment experiments when rumor reached her of a morgue that kept losing bodies. Curiosity piqued, she waited for proper business hours, then did her best impression of the Burkle and pretended to be the grieving relation of a person who had been sent to the university hospital a few weeks before and had since died. It involved a great deal of prevarication and snooping. Highly irritating. Perhaps she should have left the investigating to a human.

Still, her efforts had not been fruitless. Illyria discovered that six corpses had disappeared from the morgue in the last three weeks. Always one body at a time, and always a night, when there was only one security guard on that entire floor. While pretending to weep hysterically, Illyria managed to convince the morgue attendant to fetch her a cup of strong tea, leaving her unattended. She had caught the scent of the corpse-devouring demons halfway through a speedy search of the autopsy room. Recognizing it instantly, for it was well known to her during the time of the Old Ones, she quit the morgue before the man could return.

The creatures had once lived solely in dark, dank, enclosed spaces, so Illyria spent her afternoon hunting through nearby sewer tunnels , basements, and the occasional underground parking garage. Luck was with her, and she discovered a sizable nest of the demons living in a cave that connected to the subbasement of one of the hospital outpatient buildings. Five or six adults with half again that many young. They were not handsome demons, Illyria explained, and the others understood from her tone that the ex-god considered herself a very handsome demon indeed.

These creatures, on the other hand, highly resembled the maggots and insect larvae that normally contributed to decomposition. If maggots stood six feet tall on their hind feet, vicious, four-clawed things attached to the ends of long, thick black limbs. Their forefeet were identically formed, except the foreclaws stretched six inches, a span twice that of the hind claws. Their bodies were bulbous and lumpy, covered with a heavy membrane-like skin that stretched over their thoraxes, internal organs, and significant fat deposits. Short, stocky necks supported large black heads with multifaceted red eyes – like an overgrown horsefly's – and a powerful, curving beak.

Besides being hideous, they were tricky to kill. Beheading worked, if your sword could slice through the creature's thick neck before it gutted you. Total disembowelment could also be successful, provided you got past the membrane and thorax wall. The creatures moved faster than might be expected given their bulk and ungainly anatomy.

"Avoid the claws, if possible. They will tear through your meager clothing and leave infections in your blood that are nearly always fatal. Sepsis, you humans call it. The same warning applies to the beaks. Move quickly, stay out of range as much as possible, and do not underestimate them. While they possess little to no higher reasoning powers, they do have significant animal cunning."

"How do you know so much about them?" inquired Faith.

Illyria smiled wolfishly. "They were the chief devourers of the dead when the world was mine. Humans and demon bodies littered the face of the earth, and these vermin kept the piles of corpses to a manageable level. I had not given them a thought in eons, and yet their survival does not surprise me. They are the type of creature that would crawl deep into the fetid belly of the earth and survive, hidden, for many counts of years. They have shrunk since I ruled, but I daresay their cunning remains. Turn here, Angel." She indicated a narrow side street. "This is a shortcut."

"All right." Angel turned left, trusting Illyria's navigational skills for the moment. "What are these demons called? What is their proper name?"

The ex-god shrugged. "I do not know. They were so far below me that I hardly noticed their existence. To have honored them with a name would have been an unbelievable condescension."

"You never named them, even in conversation?"

The shrug transitioned smoothly into a frown. "There was never a need to converse about them. To have done so would be unthinkable."

"So we're stuck calling them the giant body-snatching grubs from Hell? That's catchy," Faith muttered.

"We could call them the über-maggots."

"Spike. Not helping."

Following Illyria's shortcuts was a tricky business at best. They rarely worked and often led to delays. So it proved this time. After half an hour of twisting turns, side streets, and trying to force the Dodge into dark alleyways, they finally arrived at the outpatient building and its parking lot. Angel parked the car in the half-empty lot against Spike's protestations of the need for more cloak and dagger. Luckily, the building housed a twenty-four hour urgent care facility, so their car would go unnoticed. It would also be their way in, something Spike was curious to exploit.

"Do we need to actually get into this urgent thing? Cuz I can always give Peaches a jagged bloody cut down the side of his face – improve his looks an' all. Or drain Faithy of a pint. You know, so she can faint from blood loss."

"No, Spike," the other three replied in chorus.

"We need not attempt to use the humans' medical facilities," Illyria explained loftily. "We only need access to the building's stairway. I assume the half-breeds are still capable of breaking down doors?"

"Half-breeds, my a-"

Angel clapped his hand over Spike's mouth. "Shut up, William. Illyria, what is the rest of the plan?"

Not even attempting to hide her giant smirk, the ex-god continued. When she finished her explanation, the Slayer and the vampires all nodded in agreement. It seemed sound and left room for improvisation, which was good. One thing about Faith and her boys? They all _loved_ to improvise.

They entered the urgent care center nonchalantly, their weapons concealed beneath Spike and Angel's trenchcoats. Illyria led the way to a staircase off of the main lobby, and the group descended. Their hearts raced with anticipation. No matter how much they might hesitate to admit it, they were adrenaline junkies, the lot of them.

Three flights of stairs later, Spike carefully opened the door into a utility access hallway. The others crept silently past him for roughly one hundred yards until they came to a door marked "Heating System and Furnace. Authorized Accesss Only." This was it.

Illyria nodded regally, and swords were redistributed to their owners. Faith gripped the hilt of her blade reflexively as the former god waved a hand and the access only door unlocked with a gentle snick. She opened it slowly, motioning for quiet. The monster fighters proceeded into an dimly lit, cramped tunnel. They rounded one, two, three corners before taking one last turn that left them facing a ragged hole in the tunnel wall that led into a cave. Stepping carefully over chunks of broken concrete, they entered the large space, which reached back nearly ten yards.

At first all Angel registered was the smell. Worse than the charnel houses of Ireland in his youth, this stench of death, death, death assaulted his senses and nearly bowled him over. He was not alone in being so affected. Spike was blinking rapidly, mouthing "bloody f-ing hell," and Faith had her nose buried in sleeve. Illyria only seemed unbothered. Her eyes glinted in an I-told-you-so fashion, and she mutely gestured before them.

Angel looked up to see nine or ten gigantic maggot creatures huddled in a large, oozing mass upon the floor. They appeared to be sleeping and were even more horrid in person than Illyria's descriptions had made them out to be. Her words had not conveyed the ghastly horribleness of moist skin glistening in the pale light from the tunnel behind them. The vampire swallowed once, twice, then tightened his hold on his sword. Beside him, the others did the same. Illyria lifted three slender fingers and lowered them one by one. The fighters rushed forward.

Spike was the first to reach one of the maggot demons. He raised his sword and sliced cleanly through the demon's stubby neck. The decapitated head rolled unevenly across the floor and straight into the face of another über-maggot. The scent of its fellow's blood woke the creature. Before Illyria could silence it with some spell, it opened cloudy red eyes, saw the intruders, and screeched in alarm. The other eight maggots instantly woke and lumbered to their feet, squawking in surprise and anger to find the humanoids in their cave. They advanced, long claws stretched out and beaks clacking menacingly. Shaking free of the shocked paralysis which had held them since the second creature had raised the alarm, the fighters swept forward to meet the maggots.

From there on, it was utter chaos. Über-maggots were much harder to slaughter when they were not sleeping. Spike soon discovered this as one of the creatures corned him against the wall of the cave. He barely managed to block its piercing claws with his sword. Steel screeched in protest as the hard, chitin-like, black talons scraped across the blade. Spike ducked his head just in time to miss being blinded by the demon's sharp beak and then had to wriggle sideways quickly to avoid the claws again. Swearing to rival any good British sailor, he kicked the miserable maggot straight in the gut.

The creature doubled over momentarily, and Spike used its distraction to move away from the wall. He stabbed it close to the spine, near where the kidneys would have been in a human. This only irritated the maggot. It whirled on him as the vampire struggled to jerk his weapon free from the putrescent flesh. The maggot smelled far worse with a gaping wound, if that were even possible. In a distant chamber of his mind, Spike idly wondered if he would ever be able to smell anything pleasant after this.

The maggot was upon him again, and all his attention was required to successfully parry its curved talons and to avoid being driven against the wall again. He cut and sliced at the maggot whenever he had an opening, but it was a long ten minutes before the creature grew weak and disoriented enough for a beheading stroke. At last Spike saw his chance and parted the maggot's head from its body. This took much more effort than his earlier decapitation, for his sword was now dulled and gummy with maggot blood and innards.

Gasping for breath (an old habit he'd never quiet been able to break), Spike turned to see how the others were faring. He saw Angel and Faith fighting back to back, fending off two of the demons. Two more lay still and headless a few feet away. Something had gotten to Peaches, for a ten-inch gash streaked across the older vampire's shirt, baring the muscled skin beneath.

Spike almost smirked. No wonder his grandsire was fighting so fiercely. Angel hated getting his expensive clothes ruined. He and Faith seemed to be holding their own, however, so the blond looked around for Illyria. She was currently standing atop the bodies of three maggots, a wickedly curved scimitar in one hand and a ball of electric blue flames in the other. The former god-king howled in some archaic language, her eyes alight with the same fierce blue light. The she hurled the sphere of magic fire at a fourth maggot that was tentatively approaching her. The creature went down instantly with a charred hole through its chest.

Illyria leapt down from her throne of the dead, a terrible smile upon her face. With a few guttural words, she called more flames to her hand and then threw them on the one last maggot demon still standing. Its friend had collapsed moments before, Faith's sword embedded in its face. The last demon screamed as blue fire engulfed its head. Frantically, it attempted to run away from the source of its misery. Angel, who always preferred a clean kill, stepped forwards and decapitated the maggot with one stroke. The still-burning head bounced to the ground, the black beak stabbing the muddy cave floor with a wet thud.

The fighters stood in silence for a moment, everyone trying to catch their breath and waiting for the adrenaline rush to subside. Everyone except Illyria, who was infuriatingly calm and collected as always. Still smiling that awful smile of hers, the ex-god strode casually about the cave, setting the maggot demon corpses on fire with her magic. When she came to the last one, she jerked Faith's sword free before incinerating it like the others. She presented the sword to the Slayer with an ironic half bow.

"Is anyone injured?" Angel asked finally.

"No."

"Nope."

"Nah, Peaches. Just your shirt."

Angel wisely ignored this. "Illyria. Is there anything else to do?"

She shook her head. "I have burned the vermin. All is finished. Let us go. You all reek and are in great need of cleansing."

Faith laughed weakly in agreement. "Oh, yeah, Blue. Everything smells so bad that I'm not sure which is worse – breathing through my nose or breathing through my mouth."

The vampires grinned at her superiorly.

"Whatever, boys. Try talking without breath. Oh, wait . . . you can't!"

"Their silence might indeed be a vast improvement."

"Ladies. You would be devastated without me. Without Captain Broody over there, not so much."

"Spike, I let Drusilla bring you into this world, and I can easily take you out of it."

Bickering amicably, the four friends left the death-filled cave, pausing only long enough for Illyria to murmur a few well-chosen words and cause the ceiling to come crashing down. Somehow, they managed to sneak back out of the urgent care building without anyone stopping.

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><p>Later that evening, after spending nearly an hour in the shower trying to get the scent of maggot demon off her skin, Faith found her favorite trouble-makers comfortably settled on the basement couches. Spike and Illyria were occupied with the new Halo game, and, from the amount of swearing going on, Blue was winning. A laptop perched on his knees, Angel sat on the other couch, frowning slightly. Faith joined him.<p>

"Whatcha working on?" she asked curiously.

"SAT prep." Angel smiled in her direction but didn't take his eyes from the screen. "I'm researching the best way to teach advanced reading comprehension. I might have the girls read some 19th century literature to prepare them. We'll start out easy with Austen, then move onto Dickens, if they're dedicated enough. Perhaps also a few art history books and something on social theory and technical subjects. Maybe a well-translated version of _Les Miserables_ with weekly discussions? If they can not only survive but analyze Hugo, they will be better prepared for their tests."

Faith raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like somebody just really wants to start a book club."

Angel did look at her now, and he grinned sheepishly. "You may have a point there."

"I'm pretty sure I do." She grinned back in response. "You pretend to be a big, bad vampire, but inside you have all this pent-up tension from your secret desire to be a librarian."

"Hey. I'd be a fearsome librarian."

"More like a mopey one."

"I'll have you know I'm a classic Byronic hero. Dark, handsome, tortured, intriguing."

"Oh, really? Who was Byron again?"

"Come here. I'll show you." The vampire waited while she scooted closer and then turned the laptop so it face both of them. "If you promise to be nice, I might even read some of it to you." He lifted his head, assuming a stoic Byronic pose.

"Get on with it," the Slayer snorted, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

"If my lady commands . . ."

"She does. Now tell me about Byron."

Spike and Illyria exchanged knowing looks. Pausing Halo temporarily, the blond vampire pulled out his cheap cell phone and sent a quick text.

_Spotted it. Proceed with the plan._

He pocketed the phone before he could be overwhelmed with replies. Even so, it still buzzed excitedly on and off for the next five minutes of Halo.

"Are you sure about this?" Illyria hissed during a particularly loud burst of gunfire from the game.

"No," Spike replied shortly as his character dove behind the wreckage of an alien ship to avoid death. "But the Slayerettes are."

"And if it ends messily as human emotions always do?"

He sighed quietly. "Then we pick up the bloody pieces. All I know is that those two could damn well use some happiness, for once."

To this, Illyria had no argument. "Indeed. Well, for all our sakes, I do hope you three are right."

Spike's gaze darted quickly to the other couch, where Angel had just started reading Byron's _The Corsair_. "Me, too, Blue. Me, too."

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><p><strong>As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Coming up next, Angel begins to implement his SAT plans, and Zoe confides in her journal. Thanks for reading!<br>**


	13. Dear Dairy, pt 2

**Disclaimer: Anything recognizable belongs to Joss Whedon. Anything ridiculous belongs to me.**

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><p>Dear Journal, December 10, 2004<p>

Hey. Sorry I haven't written in a while. Life's been crazy with Slaying and other crappage. I don't really care about school right now. I know it's important and stuff, but I've got more pressing matters on my mind. You know, like saving the world, trying to find a new boyfriend, getting ready for Christmas . . . the important things.

Speaking of which, I've already bought presents for nearly everyone: a scarf for Linea, some old smelly crumbly paperback that I found at a used bookstore for Angel, a CD for Spike, a Sonic gift card for Illyria – that lady has a milkshake addiction! – another scarf for Faith, a new videogame for my little brothers, and some nice earrings for my mom. She has been so great this year. I wonder if she suspects that something's up?

What with the Slaying and cheerleading and all, I haven't exactly been the world's greatest daughter. I think it's been months since I was home all night on a night when I didn't have to babysit. Faith's new schedule should make things easier, but I don't know. It seems like once you're a Slayer, life always gets super hard. I mean, look at Buffy. Look at Faith. Although Faith says her life was pretty screwed up before the whole Slaying thing happened. Honestly, though, sometimes I am terrified about the future.

Anyways . . . yes, I'm still journaling in homeroom. Yes, Mr. Burkiss is still a pain in the derriere. Yes, I'm still studying SAT words. But now I do a lot of that in Slayer training. Angel forces us to define a new Sat word after every sparring match or archery session or set of exercise reps. It's cool, except for when he tries to get us to do algebra problems in our heads. Sadistic vampire.

Speaking of Angel, I'm still getting major UST vibes between him and Faith. UST = Unresolved Sexual Tension. Linea agrees tentatively, but she prefers to phrase it as "the potential for something more." Spike sees it, too. In fact, he texted me last night, telling me so. It would appear that Operation Fangel is a go.

Crap. Only 5 minutes of class left. Here's a quick list. Yes, I still live by them. Get over it.

TDL:

1. Go to wrestling cheerleading practice after school.

2. Ask Mom what our plans for Christmas are.

3. Go patrolling tonight with Linea. Brainstorm plans for Operation Fangel.

4. Swing by the Halfway House, start dropping hints about the need for chaperons to the semiformal next Saturday night. Check in with Spike on Operation Fangel.

Love,

Zoë Nicole Errasserat

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><p>Dear Journal, February 2, 2005<p>

Obviously, I can't journal worth a damn. Or do anything worth a damn, for that matter, except Slay. And eat.

Christmas was lovely. Faith and the vamps gave Linea and me the whole week off, plus a whole week at the beginning of the new semester. It was so nice to just relax and spend time with my family, but then I had to go and put my foot in it. I dropped the Slayer bomb on Mom over the break. Boy, did she _**FLIP**_.

It took over an hour to convince her that I wasn't a) drunk or b) high. Even then, she freaked out that I was having a mental breakdown and tried to get me to check into one of those facilities that are really just temporary teenager insane asylums. Finally, I got Faith and Spike to come over to help me convince Mom that I'm not bat-crazy. Although, according to Linea, I am pretty cray-cray for telling my Mom. (Linea still refuses to tell anyone in her family. I think she's going to explode from stress.)

In the end, Spike had to "vamp out" for Mom to believe any of us. Unfortunately, we were standing in the kitchen at the time, and Mom reached over to grab a cast iron skillet. She walloped Spike right in the fangéd face, and he broke a tooth. (Fang-ed. Yep. That's how I'm saying it now.)

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find people who do cosmetic vampire dentistry? Do you? Well, neither do I. Apparently, though, Spike, Angel, and Giles do, because they haven't stopped giving Faith and me crap about it, and it's been a month. Jeez. They need to lighten up.

Mom's giant flip-out resulted in me being grounded for the next two weeks – so maybe that's why Faith gave us time off. She – Mom, not Faith – is still kind of mad at me, and I have a curfew now. I'm really trying not to break it, which is hard when we keep having apocalypses every other weekend or something. Seriously, do the stupid Big Bads not get that I'm trying to repair my relationship with my only living parent? Ugh. I wish those stupid Powers That Be would cut me some slack.

As if that wasn't enough, I've had to completely abandon the Plan. Gunn's moved out already and started school at some technical place. He and Rona have got a place together, and we rarely see them. When we do, they're so romantic, it's gross. Way too sappy. Ew. It's reached a point where Faith keeps making jokes about how they've turned her off of monogamy forever.

Linea points out that this might just be Faith's way of making light of her commitment phobia. Idk, but Faith and Angel are my OTP. They're my One True romantic Pairing. They're going to work out someday, be the real deal and true love and everything. I just can't risk their eternal happiness by pushing Operation Fangel at present. So for now, I will simply be an avid observer.

To Do List of Doom:

1. Tell Spike Operation Fangel is off.

2. Babysit tonight to make up to Mom.

3. Take an SAT practice test.

Bye!

Zoë

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><p>Dear Journal, March 4, 2005<p>

Hey, Sorry about the lack of dairying/diarying/whatever. I've been cramming for the SAT again. Linea and I have test dates in two weeks' time, and it's actually super stressful. Thankfully, wrestling season is almost over, so I have no more afterschool cheer practice. Instead, L & I spend most of our afternoons at the Halfway House, cramming for the Sat under Angel's supervision. We do math drills, practice estimating fractions, race to beat one another at solving quadratic equations, and take turns deconstructing and correcting the grammar of official Slayer-Watcher's Council emails. Don't ask me how he gets those.

Faith has been super busy lately, teachings aerobics classes and her self-defense stuff. I swear, she teaches at least two classes a day or something, even on Saturdays! She's in such good shape that I am nearly perishing with jealousy. I mean, we're all Slayers and stuff, so how does she get those abs? I work out every day and train with the vamps, but I'm nowhere near as cut as she is. Linea says for me to get over it.

Apparently, Faith's self-defense classes are _really_ popular. Probably because she can relate to all the shiz her students have gone through. Linea and I don't know all the details, but I'm pretty sure Faith has had enough emotional trauma that she ought to see a shrink. A real one, not Angel or Giles. I mentioned this to Linea, who informed me that _I_ needed a shrink, too. The sad part is that she's right.

For some reason, Illyria keeps disappearing. No one knows where, although I suspect it's somewhere dark and creepy. For all that she's taken to dressing normally and junk, Illyria still gives me the heebie-jeebies. There's something alien about her, and I don't always trust that she'll have my back.

No mini-apocalypses this month, which was a total relief. I think my mom has forgiven me for the Slayer thing, 'cause I no longer get grounded at the top of a hat drop of a hat, which is good.

Got my fingers crossed that everything is going to work out for college and stuff. I have had a few conversations with Giles, who's kind of the unofficial head of the new Watcher's Council. He says that if I go to school either in a city with other Slayers or in some place with relatively little supernatural activity, that it should be totally okay if I just relegated Slaying to an extracurricular activity rather than a calling. I'm starting to see why Faith loves that man so much. She like only ever says positive things about him. Super atypical for Faith, if you ask me.

Anyway, Today's List of Demony Thing and Non-Demony Things To Do:

1. SAT study 2 hours

2. Cheer at last home wrestling meet tonight

3. Find out when Prom is

4. Go patrolling tomorrow w/ Spike. Ask him if Illyria is as weird as I think she is.

TTYL,

Zoë Nicole

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><p>Dear Journal, March 7, 2005<p>

Normally I hate Mondays, but today has been surprisingly bearable. I got all my homework done Saturday, and I was prepared for the pop quiz in U.S. History. So far, so good.

The weekend was actually kind of nice. I got to have a decent convo with Spike. Here it is, as best as I remember. We had just finished our first cemetery and were driving over to the next one. Three vampires were expected to rise that night. We'd already staked the first two and were hoping to go three for three. Spike was feeling lazy (again), so I was driving.

"What does Illyria do in her free time?" I asked out of the blue, no Bluebird pun intended.

Spike appeared unconcerned by my curiosity. "She's working on a spell to fix that catch in Peaches' soul's contract thing. From what she's said, I think Blue _may_ be trying the spell out on other vampires to make sure it works, first. There've been whispers of a blue vigilante in some of the shadier parts of town."

"A vigilante? Like Batman? I can't see Illyria as Batman," I confided. "She doesn't seem like the type to help others out of altruism."

He shrugged. "As I said, whispers. Now that I worth _with_ the Slayer instead of against her, people are less inclined to share gossip."

"Huh." That made sense. "Do you trust her?"

"Illyria?"

"Yes."

"In this, yeah. She perceives herself as owing something to Angel. Because of Fred, I think. Angel was always the handsome man who'd rescued Fred from the monsters. Blue wants to make good on that debt."

"I don't really like her," I confessed.

Spike looked at me from across the front seat and grinned. "You don't have to like her, pet. You just have to give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Mmph. Maybe." I changed tactics. "Do you like her?"

"She's cool, yeah."

"But do you, you know, _like_ her?"

The vampire just laughed at me, but I kid you not, dear journal, there is something there. Now I have a new Plan. I thought about it all during church yesterday, but I'm pretty sure God will forgive me. After all, the pastor says that God is love. He wouldn't begrudge me for wanting to bring a little more love into the lives of my crazy friends/associates. Obviously not.

Gotta dash. The Burkiss is looking at me suspiciously again. Jeez. Would he take a chill pill? It's not my fault that the idea of my poor single adult nonhuman friends finding love together makes me beam with joy.

My List:

1. Conscript Linea into the new Plan

2. Study for the SAT 2 hours

3. Dinner with Mom, start prepping for David and Joey's birthdays. They turn 10 in April. Almost a month away, but you can never be too prepared for a birthday. Did I mention that my bro-bros are twins?

4. Patrol tonight with Angel. Persuade him that I _really_ don't need to study any more trig identities.

5. Talk Faith into talking to the school board about teaching a Zumba class at the high school a couple of mornings a week. It's time for the cheer squad to start getting our bikini bodies ready.

Love,

Zoë

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><p>Dear Journal, March 8, 2005<p>

This is going to be super short because Angel had the nerve to give me trigonometry identity homework last night. What the heck is he smoking? I don't even know.

TDL:

1. SAT study & cheer practice

2. Start studying for midterm in US history. Actually read chapters on WWII – or just ask Spike and Angel why Nazis are bad.

3. Mix the A negative and O positive blood together in revenge for the trig HW.

Bye,

ZNE

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><p>Dear Dairy, March 9, 2005<p>

Note to self: Do not ask Faith to be a morning person. She will gripe you out. Maybe I can talk her around into teaching afternoon Zumba classes at the school? It's not like I don't have tons and tons of afterschool extracurricular activities as it is. Only 9 days till the SAT's! As Linea so kindly reminds me, if we fail, we can just take them again. Hahahahaha. All I can say is, I'd better not fail.

Second Note to Self: When it comes to WWII, just read the textbook. It is less long-winded than Tweedle-Blond and Tweedle-Brood. AKA Spike and Angel.

Aaaaand guess who has more SAT homework from The Brooding Menace? Yup, that would be me. Excuse me while I go practice long division. Gag.

TDL

1. Patrol w/ Illyria tonight without getting creeped out.

2. Talk to Coach Sylvester re: Zumba for Cheerleaders

3. Study for US Hist. test Fri.

4. Prom? When? Dress? DATE?

Love Always,

Zoë Nicole Errasserat


	14. Reflections

**Disclaimer: Anything BtVS or AtS related belongs to Joss Whedon.**

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><p>It has now been several months of hard research, and I have yet to find a cure for the curse on Angelus. There are many variations of spells to re-ensoul or desoul a vampire, but I have yet to discover a single one that deals with suspect Gypsy curses. I have plumbed the depths of the Watcher's Council library via my pet Andrew, who continues to serve my interests across the ocean. I have eve "vid-conferenced" with that upstart witch Willow. That particular experience, I vow, I shall never repeat. Her false sweetness and the bitterness it fails to conceal turn my stomach. Her power is also significantly less than she claims. Disgusting and pathetic.<p>

In addition, I have tracked down and interviewed every person of Gypsy heritage in this filthy city. It was spectacularly unhelpful, but I have now become adept in using what these mortals refer to as "mass-transit." I have also emailed Gypsies in England, Ireland, France, Hungary, and Romania. None of them show any promise save a few located in the last country.

Unfortunately, the man called Giles has refused me travel funds. I have forgotten much what I once knew of alchemy, and so it is taking rather a long time to prepare the amount of gold necessary and to exchange it into human currency. I shall also require false identification documents for travel. Perhaps I shall ask Spike for his help with such things, once I have sufficient gold.

Lesser beings might feel discouraged at such setbacks. Not I. I have other plans, other "irons in the fire," as the saying goes. I am continuously practicing my human impersonation. I receive half the amount of strange glances from commoners that I did two months ago. I have defeated all of the Zelda games and routinely best all comers at Melee. I also have begun attending the Slayer's fitness classes in order to further my study of human being gender differences. But most importantly, I have been researching how to communicate with spirits. Why? One simple self-explanatory word: Wesley.

Wesley. Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley, Wesley. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

His name fills my mind at nights and courses through my blood. He was so broken when he died. We destroyed and corrupted him, those who claimed to be his friends. I wish Gunn had died that day instead. Spike and Angel wish it, too, even if they will not admit it to be so.

My goal in this endeavor is to find Wesley's soul, give it the power of utterance, and speak with him. I wonder if he has healed at all, or if he is forever locked in a state of misery and pain. Of all of us, he deserved that the least. He was truly human. We are demon.

This is why I see less of my pets nowadays. I have established an alchemical laboratory in an abandoned warehouse a few miles from my current residence with my pets. I will train, fight, and patrol with them, but I spend nearly twelve hours a day in my laboratory. I prepare the reactions to turn dross to gold and then begin my search through the Realms of the Dead for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I have eliminated nearly two-hundred hell dimensions, but there are many, many more to search through.

I am bothered little by the immensity of the search. I, who waited millennia before I was able to possess the Burkle, I will not quail in the face of a long hunt. As of yet, this body has not aged since I entered into it. I can wait however long it takes until I find Wesley again. And I will do so. With Angelus's soul permanently restored and Wesley safely returned, I might be content in this mortal form.

Enough. I must cease these meditations. I have identified a new permutation of the Gypsy's spell that the hedgewitch Willow gave me. I must go retrieve more of the synthetic drugs to cause ecstatic bliss. Also more test subjects. Hmm. Time to clothe this body in the Slayer's skimpy castoffs and go hunting . . . It will be, as is nearly all I do in this search for redemption, for Wesley.

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><p><strong>AN: Feedback, especially reviews, are always appreciated. Thanks for sticking with the story this long and for taking the time to read!**


	15. Official Notice

**A/N: **I have plotted the half dozen or so chapters that it would take to finish this story several times but have never been able to actually write them. I am also currently working on a few other projects that I feel much more passionate about, including a Faith-centric BtVS/Supernatural crossover. Halfway House is now on official, permanent hiatus. Thanks so much to all of you who have taken the time to read, review, follow, and favorite this story.


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